rural news 18 feb 2014
DESCRIPTION
Rural News 18 Feb 2014TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 18, 2014: ISSUE 555 www.ruralnews.co.nz
RURALNEWS
AGRIBUSINESSAvocado pulp is being turned into powder for food products. PAGE 23
MANAGEMENTAdvanced weaning approach boosts beef returns for Hawke’s Bay farmers. PAGE 32 ANIMAL WELFARE
Are there nicer ways to euthanise
calves?PAGE 14
TO ALL FARMERS, FOR ALL FARMERS
CHEEKY ENOUGH TO PLANT CHICORY?WANT TO overcome pasture shortage in summer and lift milk yield at the same time? Tirau farmer Jack Steegh believes planting chicory may be the answer. Steegh, last week, told a Smaller Milk and Supply Herd (SMASH) field day on his farm that chicory works well for break feeding in summer to boost cow nutrition. Chicory, with its tap root can access soil moisture at a deep level more consistently during dry periods, producing high yields in summer. Ryegrass struggles in dry conditions with it shallow root system. This season Steegh will plant another 4ha with chicory. Full story page 35.
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THE CHAIRMAN of the Meat Indus-try Excellence (MIE) group, John McCarthy, says he’s bewildered at the “head in the sand” approach taken by the Alliance Group to over-tures to appoint Fonterra director John Monaghan to its board.
MIE has pushed to get Monaghan appointed to the board and had a non-binding resolution to this effect passed at the Alliance annual meet-ing. Monaghan says he is keen to serve “the interests of the red meat sector”.
But Alliance chairman Murray Taggart has rejected calls to have Monaghan directly appointed to the board. He says Monaghan must go through the process determined by the board, whereby potential candi-dates are first vetted by a consultant – a process Monaghan has rejected as being a “façade”.
“I think there is a groundswell among farmers for change and I have given a commitment that I am avail-able,” Monaghan told Rural News.
Given the interest in the Monaghan affair, Alliance took the unprecedented step of writing to shareholders explaining the situation. Taggart wrote, “I spoke with John [Monaghan] about the process and invited him to submit his CV and meet with the independent consultant to discuss the role. I understand John then indicated he was reviewing his position and as a result did not meet with the
MIE saga drags on
Crunch time for TPP talksAGRICULTURAL TRADE envoy Mike Petersen is in Singapore this week as crucial talks take place aimed at final-ising a Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal.
He’ll be joined later in the week by Trade Negotiations Minister Tim Groser, attending the ‘ministerial’ meet-ings.
Petersen told Rural News he’s always optimistic about a deal being finalised, but this depends on the “political will” of the 12 countries involved. He says time is running out to get a deal struck and if no deal is done within the next four months it’ll be hard going from then on.
Petersen will meet officials and lobby groups from the other participating countries and will push the New Zea-land case for trade liberalisation. He will
talk to the people who support the New Zealand position and those opposed to it to try to boost the political effort of Tim Groser and his negotiators.
“There are issues and it won’t sur-prise anyone that the agricultural ones are big. We still have to get offers on the table so that we can put together a deal that will be comprehensive and elimi-nate tariffs across all products and all the member countries. That’s a big piece of work and it will be hard going.”
Petersen says the Japanese have to deal with issues over meat and dairy and the Americas with sensitive polit-ical issues.
“The Canadians would argue that dairy is particularly sensitive and other countries have particular interests in sugar and rice. That’s what makes it so complex because you have 12 countries, each with different needs and positions, and trying to reconcile those is a chal-lenge.”
PETER BURKE
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
NEWS 3
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consultant to participate any further in the appointment process. As such he is no longer under consideration for the vacant position.”
In the letter Taggart also confirmed that the board is planning to have only three independent directors, despite being able to appoint four.
“At this stage the board has decided that the current mix of six elected and three appointed directors is appropri-ate,” he said.
The decision to appoint only three independent directors thwarts MIE’s
proposition to persuade the Alliance board to appoint Monaghan as a fourth director -- a move that has angered McCarthy.
“Right from the start Taggart has resisted the inclusion of Monaghan for whatever reason and only Murray can tell you what the reason is. I think it is incumbent upon on the board, espe-cially of a cooperative, if they are true to cooperative principles, to actually include him,” says McCarthy.
But Taggart remains unmoved. “It’s no different from the way Steve Hansen
picks the All Blacks. Does he hold a trial and get the best person for the role? Or when there is a group of provincial officials lobbying for their provincial player does he appoint that person? The answer is obvious.”
Despite MIE’s pleadings and Monaghan’s restated desire to join the board, the door seems firmly closed for at least another year. Taggart has made it clear the only pathway for Monaghan to the board table is to buy stock, then shares in Alliance, and stand as a farmer representative.
McCarthy says MIE plans to meet in Wellington later this month to see which candidates it will support for election to the boards of the two major cooperatives. He says he still can’t understand the position of the Alliance board and chairman Taggart.
“I would have thought he would have welcomed us with open arms. For god’s sake we are co-op friendly. I find it bewildering and think shareholders will too.” - Peter Burke
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Alliance rejects MIE’s posturing on Monaghan
Minister looks into rules around on-farm calf culling
THE FURORE over the Chilean calf culling footage has prompted Minister for Primary Industries Nathan Guy to consider changes to welfare laws here.
“I have concerns over this prac-tice, and I’m investigating options for taking a tougher line on this,” he told Rural News.
“I am discussing this with officials and industry, and one option could include banning the practice.”
But both DairyNZ and Federated Farmers say a ban would not be helpful.
“Our stance is that we’re quite happy that the code is fit for purpose,” says Rick Pridmore, DairyNZ strategy and investment leader, sustainability.
“You can only use blunt force trauma in emergency situations.”
As such, culling calves with a blow to the head because the bobby calf price doesn’t warrant putting them on a truck is a breach of the code, says Pridmore.
“That’s our interpretation of it and MPI have agreed on our interpretation.”
Pridmore says “not that many” calves are killed on farm anyway. “A very small percentage of those born. Most go
to the works or they’re keepers.”Of those killed on farm, most would
be by the preferred methods of either captive bolt or firearm.
Pridmore says the blunt force trauma comes can be used situations where a captive bolt or firearm isn’t immediately available and delaying euthanasia would prolong suffering.
“As an industry we have to make sure it is kept to that and there are no farms not following the code.”
Both the code and Pridmore stress anyone culling a calf, or any other animal, with a blow to the head, must be suitably trained and skilled in the prac-tice, just as they need to be with captive
ANDREW SWALLOW
Born alive to dairy heifers / cows (StatsNZ) 3,757,600
Processed�for�human�consumption�(Beef�&�Lamb�NZ) 1,890,000
Herd�replacements�or�live�export�(Feds�estimate) 1,200,000
Reared�for�beef�(Beef+Lamb) 445,000
Culled�on-farm�(Feds’�estimate) 56,364
Processed�for�pet�food�(AC�Petfoods) 55,000
Balance�(attrition�stock/home�kill) 111,236
bolt or rifle.“The most important thing is to
render that animal senseless as quickly as possible.”
Federated Farmers dairy chairman, Willy Leferink, echoes Pridmore’s
comments, and warns extra legisla-tion won’t stop the occasional farmer or farm employee that is prone to bad practice.
“You can write a whole heap of leg-islation and it doesn’t do a thing. There will always be those who go beyond it anyway… anything can happen behind a shed.”
Federated Farmers plans a cam-paign to ensure best practice is fol-lowed where calves must be culled on farm, but the industry shouldn’t even be talking about such things in public, because they are the exception rather than the rule. “It sends the wrong mes-sage. We’re farmers because we love the land and we love our animals.”
NUMBERS FOR calves euthanised on farm are hard to come by, let alone a breakdown of method employed.
MPI told Rural News Agriculture Production Statistics for the year ended 2013 show 3,757,617 dairy calves born alive, of which 1,696,422 were processed as bobby calves for human consumption.
“The difference between these two figures reflects calves sold for pet food production, reared as replacements, reared for beef, or destroyed on farm, but there are no accurate records to separate these categories,” says the ministry.
Federated Farmers has had a shot at breaking it down, but acknowledges its figures below are a best estimate on limited data. (See table below).
Number hard to nail
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4 NEWSInvestigation warranted – HortNZ
VEGETABLE GROWERS and proces-sors stand to lose tens of millions of dol-lars from the Australian supermarket ban, says Horticulture NZ chief executive Peter Silcock.
Processed vegetables exports to Austra-lia fetch the country $300 million annually.
“It’s a big business for us. While we’re not sure how much of this goes into house-branded products, we expect the ban to cost our growers and processors tens of millions of dollars,” Silcock told Rural News.
Australia’s two big chains, Coles and Woolworths, are using only Australian veg-etables in their house-branded products. Prime Minister John Key raised the issue at a recent meeting with his Australian counterpart Tony Abbott in Sydney. How-ever, Abbott shrugged it off as a commer-cial decision by the supermarkets.
HortNZ supports Key’s effort to bring the attention to Australian politicians.
Silcock says it understands that this policy only applies to the supermarket house-branded products so it’s mainly about canned and frozen vegetables.
“This is a commercial and political move, Aussie growers have campaigned for this,” he says.
“They struggle to compete with us and
get significant support from their state and federal governments. This is a pretty des-perate measure, not in the spirit of CER and it reduces choice for Australian con-sumers.”
Silcock says most of the vegetables used in house-branded products in Austra-lia are sourced from other countries. It is not a snub aimed only at New Zealand but New Zealand growers are obviously very disappointed as Australia is an important market, he adds.
HortNZ believes this situation high-lights how critically important country of origin labelling has become to consumers. Australia has mandatory country of origin labelling for food, New Zealand does not, says Silcock.
“The supermarkets are just respond-ing to consumer pressure to buy Australian made. Kiwi shoppers can’t do that, because we are not given the choice.
“HortNZ has always encouraged New Zealanders to support Kiwi industries and we would love to see a mandatory coun-try of origin regime established in New Zealand to help consumers here make informed choices.”
HortNZ’s message to New Zealand growers is to continue producing vegeta-bles competitively.
“We want our growers to continue focusing on growing quality vegetables for both local consumption and export.”
SUDESH KISSUN
Aussie supermarket ban puts NZ growers at risk
HORTNZ SAYS the Commerce Commission should investigate alleged practices of extortion by supermarkets.
HortNZ chief executive Peter Silcock says it would be good for an independent body to look into allegations made last week by Labour’s economic development spokesman, Shane Jones, in Parliament.
Jones last week accused
supermarkets of blackmailing New Zealand suppliers into paying to keep their products on its shelves.
He said under Parliamentary privilege in the House a number of New Zealand suppliers had told him that they had been called to meetings with the supermarket chain’s managers who demanded payments and backdated cheques for the losses.
Silcock says HortNZ has not received any reports of its members being hauled in by supermarkets.
“But we’ll be very concerned it has happened at all against anyone. It will be good for an independent body like the Commerce Commission to look into and make sure all practices have been above board,” he says.
HortNZ’s Peter Silcock
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
NEWS 5Extension given for Ruataniwha decision
A TIME extension of one month was granted to the Ruataniwha Dam project in Hawkes Bay after the Environmental Protection Authority’s (EPA) Board of Inquiry (BOI) decided it needed more time.
The board’s six-week submission hearing pro-cess finished on Janu-ary 21.
The inquiry had two matters to consider: resource consent appli-cations by the council’s investment arm, Hawkes Bay Regional Investment Company (HBRIC) to build the Ruataniwha Dam and a council plan that addresses water quality in the Tuki Tuki River (Plan Change 6).
The nine-month stat-utory time frame would have expired on April 28, 2014.
However, on January 31, the BOI made a request to the Environment Minis-ter, Amy Adams and Con-servation Minister, Nick Smith for an extension of the time for its final report and decision.
The request extends the timeline to May 28, 2014, and was made on the grounds there were ‘spe-cial circumstances’ that needed to be considered.
It said the Tukituki Plan Change 6, if approved ‘is likely to be used as a prototype for freshwa-ter management and land intensification in New
Zealand and also for other regional councils looking to implement the Fresh-water National Policy Statement and the recom-mendations of the Land and Water Forum.’
The Ruataniwha Water Storage Scheme, if approved would be the largest dam (25,000ha) consented in the 22-year history of the Resource Management Act.
Beef + Lamb NZ (B+LNZ) ‘strongly sup-ports the intent’ of Plan Change 6 but is concerned about the proposed nutri-ent management approach which it feared hill country farmers would bear most of the cost of managing.
B+LNZ chairman Mike Petersen says, “They need to consider all the nutrients in the catch-ment. Phosphorous and sediment is a sheep and beef, or hill country issue whereas nitrate is more of a flat land farming issue and there are many uses on that land, including cropping, dairy and inten-sive finishing.
“The requirements being made for fencing off waterways, particularly the tributaries, could be very impractical for many of our farmers.
“We want to see prog-ress on this because we are very supportive of the Ruataniwha Dam project itself – we see huge oppor-tunities for the region; for those in the catchment and also for those out of it.
VIVIENNE HALDANEA commonsense approach is necessary so that we can intensify our farming as well as take into account the needs of the environ-ment.”
Ngati Kahungunu Iwi Inc (NKII) opposes the Ruataniwha Dam proposal in its current form and its submission said, ‘there has been insufficient con-sultation with the local community and all appro-priate tangata whenua… who have strong custom-ary rights and interests in
the areas around the pro-posed dam.’
Their concerns included the financial via-bility of the project, the dam’s location being on a major fault line and contamination of sur-face and groundwater within the Tuki Tuki Land catchment as the result of land intensification.
Their sub-mission also stated other smaller scale
alternatives could be adopted to provide addi-tional irrigation water to
Central Hawkes Bay.
In August
2013, NKII
asked the HBRC for a six- month extension to allow for proper consul-tation with hapu, iwi and the wider community; this was denied.
In January, a Hawkes Bay newspaper reported the iwi would be demand-ing a six-month extension on the board of inquiry process.
But NKII chairman, Ngahiwi Tomoana told Rural News, “No, we have not formally asked the BOI for a six- month
extension. We are await-ing their report to analyse it and take it from there. We will consult with our people.”
Hawke’s Bay regional councillor, Tom Bel-ford says, “The BOI delay affirms that objections to the Plan Change and the dam are not frivolous or the misguided sport of nutters. The most funda-mental aspects of these proposals have been chal-lenged by substantial tech-nical evidence.”
Environment Minister Amy Adams has granted a month’s extension for the final report on the dam to be completed.
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
6 NEWS
AFTER NINE years chairing the Fertiliser Quality Council, South Canterbury farmer Neil Barton is standing down to be replaced by East Coast North Island farmer and Federated Farmers’ national board member, Anders Crofoot.
Executive director of the council for 14 years, Kevin Geddes, a senior policy advisor for Federated Farmers, is also handing over the reins to North Island Feds’ colleague Tessa Mills.
Geddes told Rural News it was “pure serendipity” that two Canterbury people were being replaced two southern North Island people.
The council consists of a Federated Farmers appointed chairman and four more Feds appointees, plus one represen-tative from each of the Fertiliser Manufac-turers’ Association, Hort NZ, AgResearch, and Massey University.
The changes take effect March 17 at FQC’s next meeting, to be held just prior to the annual fertiliser and lime workshop at Massey University.
RPR concerns rumble on New chair and executive for FQC
THE FERTILISER Quality Council is defending the Fertmark quality assurance scheme after accredita-tion of certain reactive phosphate rock (RPR) fertilisers was criticised by a Waikato-based consultant.
“The Fertmark scheme exists to protect the interests of farm-ers when making their fertiliser purchasers and to ensure that the nutrients claimed are consistently in the fertiliser,” it said responding to Robin Boom’s concerns raised in Rural News’ February 4 issue.
To gain the Fertmark tick RPR must be “soft mineral phosphates containing not less than 10% total phosphorus (soluble in mineral acids), at least 30% of the declared total phosphorus being soluble in 2% citric acid”, FQC says. Openness and transparency in declaration and product promotion is also required.
FQC points out that Ravensdown and Ballance, the two suppliers Boom referred to, are the only ones to sub-ject their RPR to “the rigours of the independent Fertmark quality assur-
ance programme”.But Boom says FQC’s response
avoids his main point: that while the Ballance and Ravensdown RPRs may meet the letter of the Fertmark standard, some components of the blends do not and are of little agro-nomic value.
“In the case of Boucraa Rock from Morocco that Ravensdown is blend-ing, this is a manufacturing rock and is not at all suitable for direct appli-cation.”
Boom says his reasoning for want-ing to see the Fertmark citric solubil-ity standard raised from 30% to 33% is based on AgResearch field trials at Woodville and Te Kuiti Research
stations, as reported by A G Sinclair et al in 1995. These showed Sechura and North Carolina RPR gave mark-edly better dry matter responses over three years than Arad and Egyptian rocks at just under 30% citric solu-bility yet the North Carolina (NCR) rock in the trial was only marginally better on citric solubility at 30.5%. The report also concluded that ‘agro-nomic performance of [phosphate rocks] was closely related to their formic acid solubility but poorly related to their citric acid solubility’.
“Based on this research from nearly two decades ago, formic acid solubility would be a better indica-tor of suitability, and it would appear
from this trial work having a formic acid solubility of at least 50% would be the bare minimum….
“However, even if Fertmark were to change to formic solubility tests, this will not stop Ballance or Ravens-down from being able to blend a below 50% rock with Sechura in which the blend average meets the new standard, yet the portion of the poorer rock such as Boucraa in the blend would have little if any agro-nomic value.
“For Fertmark accreditation to remain credible, it should ensure that all rocks used in blends get over 50% formic solubility on their own. To not do this, is selling farmers short and puts the whole Fertmark tick open to ridicule.”
FQC says Boom’s original point of whether the citric solubility stan-dard should be 30% or 33% has not been previously raised.
“If there is clear scientific evi-dence about the exact time when the forms of phosphorus from various rocks are actually released, such evi-dence must be presented to the Fer-tiliser Quality, supported by sound science.”
ANDREW SWALLOW
Neil Barton
RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
NEWS 7Hort exporter looks to emerging markets
EMERGING MARKETS with growth opportuni-ties include not only the ‘standard’ ones China and India, but for Turners and Growers also Latin Amer-ica and Africa, says chief executive Alastair Hulbert.
“In China and India there’s obviously great potential … but there’s a couple of new ones – Latin America and Africa,” says Alastair Hulbert comment-ing to Rural News on T&G’s new corporate strategy.
“We are seeing a lot of trade in those regions; the population again is get-ting more affluent.” In Latin America opportuni-ties include gold kiwifruit, table grapes and berryfruit.
“We have production and marketing in Chile and Peru and traditionally we have sent that product to Asia, but now we are turn-ing our focus more to mar-
keting that fruit in Latin America. And also our Jazz and Envy apples – there’s a nice niche developing in that region for those apples.
“We also have grow-ers who grow Jazz apples in Africa. Pretty much 80% of that fruit is being sold in Africa itself. In the early days it all went to Europe.”
Hulbert says there is also opportunity for T&G in cooperation with BayWa, the majority share-holder in Germany.
“They have a strong footprint in Germany and Europe but they are start-ing to export products out of Europe back to Asia. So we’re bringing our exper-tise in Asia to the table for Baywa.”
The new corporate strategy for the 117-year-old company is the result of 12 months research and collaboration by the man-agement. Hulbert says they are looking at the busi-
ness in two distinct halves: the key categories and the international trading side. The key categories are pipfruit, grapes and kiwi-fruit for global focus; and citrus and hothouse for the domestic and Australasian markets.
“We’re expanding part-nerships, production, branding and marketing all around the world from all sources to all markets.”
With citrus and hot-
house, T&G plans to work with its own grow-ing operations and exter-nal growers. Plans include branding, marketing, IP, new varieties, new produc-tion techniques and taking a stronger position here in New Zealand on those products.
“If you take hothouse for instance, we don’t have global ambitions, we are never going to take the Dutch on at growing hot-
house products in Europe so that’s why we’re con-tained to a New Zealand Australasian focus.”
Options for greater integration include pos-sible investment in the supply chain in partner-ship with growers, and investment in post-harvest and new technology. T&G plans to work with grow-ers on the correct product, quality and timing to meet market needs. It also plans
to support growers with varietal development and new production initiatives.
“With greater integra-tion there is no set formula or plan; we have a lot of independent growers we have close relationships with and we value. We want to make sure those growers get the best return on our product. We know what is being demanded by customers here in New Zealand and offshore. So we are transferring that knowledge back to the growers, helping them plan their crops and produc-tion techniques for greater yields and making sure the product flow through the marketplace is as efficient as possible to maximise return.”
T&G’s own orchards are also making changes, such as transferring to new varieties. “For instance, with mandarins we’re extending the growing season in Northland, get
higher yields with better tastes. Around the world there are breeding pro-grammes delivering better tasting citrus that eats better, stores better and gives higher production. You have to be evolving constantly.”
The second part of T&G’s strategy is the inter-national trading part of the business with asparagus, berryfruit and cherries the three key drivers outside of key categories. They are sourced and traded 365 days of the year. The focus will not be on heavy invest-ment but on people, IP and relationships.
PAM TIPA
TURNERS & GROWERS is working with New Zealand Trade and Enterprise in its Better by Design programme to help it become more innovative, efficient and internationally competitive, says Hulbert.
“We have only done the initial stage of what they call the ‘empathy interviews’ with growers and customers and with team members within T&G.
“That enabled us to learn a lot more about our business, how it operates and how it is perceived through other people’s eyes. You always have your own idea
about how it’s working but it’s good to get fresh outside view of it.
“That’s the initial phase. Now we will take those learnings and focus on one area of our business.
“At all times you have the customers’ perspective in mind -- by that I mean the consumers and the growers – and we are designing our business so we achieve the best result for the grower and the customer. That’s our second phase we’re embarking on now, so it’s been a fantastic process.”
NZTE helps with plans
Turners & Growers Alastair Hulbert says the company has been working.
RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
8 NEWS
US carpet interest for wool growsSEVERAL BIG carpet manufacturers in North Amer-ica are having a strong revival in their wool thinking, says Wools of New Zealand chief executive Ross Town-shend.
Wool is still only a small part of the carpet indus-try in North America, says Townshend, nevertheless there’s a renewed interest partly driven by margins.
“The better-end stuff has wool in it and the bottom end is all synthetic. One is a race to the bottom, but if you want to do ok then then coming up the market is important. Several of the big guys are reinvesting in wool as part of their range, which is great,” Townsh-end told Rural News.
Townshend has been travelling for a month visit-ing trade shows in Europe and the US, where Wools of NZ’s Laneve brand of carpets and furnishing fabrics were being promoted. He also spent time in the com-pany’s office in the UK.
The Domotex trade show in Germany is spectacu-larly large. “Wools of NZ had a relatively centrepiece stand with nine brand partners sharing the stand. We took a head lease and sublet to a brand partners of ours.
“It was pretty spectacular and we now have a lot more brand partners that want to join us. Instead of having nine we probably are going to have something like 15 next year, so you start to have a pretty credible presence.”
The Surfaces flooring show in Las Vegas was also impressive with the Wools of NZ display amid about 2000sq.m of displays from some of the biggest carpet manufacturers in the US.
“At Surfaces we had the launch of the first Laneve carpet in North America. The traceable brand is well established in the UK and Europe but the Americans are relatively late adopters of stuff like that.
“So the first Laneve carpet was launched at Sur-faces. It was a beautiful carpet and the interest has been picked up by quite a few people. We are starting to see some inquiry already about wider use of Laneve wool and Laneve yarn into bigger ranges of Laneve carpet.” He hopes by the end of the year there will be a number of ranges of Laneve carpet in North America.
Meanwhile he says Wools of NZ is out in the mar-ketplace now for contracts for Camira and Green-tex wool for the UK. “I expect before the end of March we will be out with another couple of contracts which will be a consequence of those trade show visits,” he says. – Pam Tipa
The tale of Mulbern EmbassyMULBERN EMBASSY was no ordinary immigrant – certainly not one of your ten-pound Poms.
He came from a farm near Mulbern, in northeast Scotland, and ended up on a farm at Mangatoro, near Dannevirke.
He was so success-ful at his job in New Zea-land that the call came to go to Australia, which he did, staying there until his untimely death in the early 1950s.
Here we should mention that Mulbern Embassy was an Angus bull, not a farmer.
The saga of Mulbern
Embassy has been reig-nited by a recent visit to New Zealand by Neil McConachie, grandson of the original owner of this bull, who is credited with greatly influencing the development of the Angus breed in this country.
Neil McConachie was never a farmer, but while growing up in Scotland he
learned about the success-ful exploits of Mulbern Embassy from his grandfa-ther, William McPherson, a well-known Angus cattle breeder and international judge.
McConachie’s visit to New Zealand came via another great Scottish tradition – golf. He was invited to New Zealand
for celebrations to do with revamping the Royal Wel-lington Golf Course. So he decided to track down some history of the bull.
“Mulbern Embassy was sold by my grandfather to a man named Donald Grant who owned a prop-erty at Mangatoro, east of Dannevirke. Grant was Scottish and came from
the same area as my grand-father and it was on one of his trips home that he bought the bull,” McCo-nachie told Rural News.
“The bull didn’t meet its reserve price of 89-and-a-half guineas (93.97 POUNDS STERLING) at the Perth, Scotland, bull sales and it appears that Donald Grant later bought it for less than this in a deal with my grandfather. While my grandfather was a great farmer, it appears he wasn’t too good with money because Donald Grant sold the bull five years later to a rancher in Australia for 1500 guin-eas.”
McConachie tracked
down Mangatoro Sta-tion and while he didn’t see the new owners, he was able to look over the fence at the land on which his grandfather’s much-talked-about bull lived and worked.
“This story has a romantic end to it. Mul-bern Embassy was killed by a younger bull at age 13 having produced 30 prog-eny in his final year,” says McConachie.
PETER BURKE
Neil McConachie
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NEWS 9
New dairy lobby head brings experience
FROM THE savannahs of South Africa to the green fields of the Waikato – the poor rural areas of her home country to European affluence – Zelda de Villiers has always been involved in agriculture.
The new chief executive of Dairy Women’s Network brings a myriad of international agricultural experiences to the position.
“I come from the wide open spaces of South Africa,” she says of her child-hood growing up on a beef and lamb farm in the ‘highveld’ area about two hours south-east of Johannesburg. Their farm was open savannah and in the grain belt of South Africa.
It was a harsh environment. Cattle graze on the ‘velt’ or pasture in summer, but in winter it becomes dry and brown, cold and windy. Stock must be fed throughout winter and are subject to diseases and parasites. Dipping and vac-cination are a high priority.
“There’s a lot of commercial beef ‘lotting’ in South Africa; our farm was more natural grazing with some sup-plement of feed produced on farm for winter. We were close to the cities... so
typically we sold those weaner calvers at six months.” The car-rying capacity is much lower, they had 900ha with about 400 cattle and 400 sheep.
She kept horses and com-peted in show jumping. “It was a good lifestyle,” she says.
She completed two degrees: in veterinary nursing and an honours degree in agricultural economics, studying at the Uni-versity of Pretoria. De Villiers was then one of five people in South Africa selected for a bursary scheme for postgraduate students who went on to work at the Development Bank of South Africa.
“It was just post-apartheid and South Africa was gearing up to develop the rural areas,” de Villiers says. She worked mostly on irrigation projects and other schemes to uplift the poor.
“I then moved to the commercial banking sector where I started on the risk side,” she says. With the arrival of the first of her two sons she looked for a more flexible career and worked in rural banking, getting to know many differ-ent industries.
As the children grew, she returned
to the development sector, working with a company administering US aid in African counties such as Tanzania and Kenya.
“Again I was looking at the rural communities and how farmers could get to market easier.”
Her husband then got a job offer from DeLaval and they moved to Sweden. Zelda began consulting for the company on a strategic plan, looking at where production would grow globally.
“That’s how I started with DeLaval; eventually I became the head of the strategy unit globally.”
In 2009, the family moved to New Zealand and “the intention was always to stay and not move again,” she says.
She initially worked in R&D on equipment for grassland farmers. New Zealand was head office for that unit, although the equipment was being developed for five other countries as well.
She moved into mar-keting for Australia, New Zealand and sub-Saharan Africa.
“I was from an analyt-ical background and that
gave me this marketing flair.” After three years she moved to head sales for New Zealand so became the managing director for New Zealand.
“In all the roles I had in DeLaval in NZ, I was developing the sales teams, the marketing teams and developing peoples’ potential, I really liked that. I am from an analytical, financial back-ground but I realised developing people was what I most enjoyed.”
She had been impressed with the Dairy Women’s Network through ear-lier dealings over sponsorship and found last year’s conference in Nelson inspiring. “So when the job became available I thought it a good match for me personally and for the network.” She
feels fortunate to have been chosen.De Villiers says she has worked in
a very male environment and “never driven the female card”.
“But coming from Africa where I worked in the development sector I understand the importance of women in the rural communities. They are often not noticed but they play a pivotal role. If you can’t develop the women you can’t develop the community.”
The Dairy Women’s Network is a successful organisation that has grown phenomenally but also has great poten-tial.
“I come from a strong strategic background. I understand how to take strategy in a complex business environ-ment and bring it down to basics... and how to implement it. That is what I have been doing for the last 10 years. That is what is needed in the Dairy Women’s Network.”
But de Villiers says firstly she must find her feet and get to know the people.
“I also want to get to know the organisation, its strengths and weak-nesses and work with the board… then I’ll take it from there.”
PAM TIPA
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Zelda de Villiers
RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
10 NEWS
Dairy poised for further growthDEMAND IN China from bakeries for cheese and cream is growing in cities
such as Shanghai, says Fonterra director John Monaghan.
Fonterra’s business there is growing annually at 20-30% and there are
opportunities for further growth, he says. For illus-tration he points to the loading, every 35 seconds, of a container of prod-uct for export by Fonterra.
The cooperative collects 22 billion litres of a milk a year – two thirds of it from New Zealand farmers
John Monaghan says the dairy industry is per-
PETER BURKE
fectly poised to become the most trusted source of protein for diets for all
age groups and all mar-kets. “Child or pediat-ric nutrition is the fastest growing dairy category in the world. Parents are demanding dairy prod-ucts to support growth in development of children and babies. There is a clear
opportunity to extend dairy further as a trusted nutrition for mothers and babies and to the elderly where there is an addi-tional demand from older consumers to stay fit and active.”
Monaghan says Fonter-ra’s focus is on developing dairy products that supply nutrition for the elderly -- products designed to pro-vide a nutritional diet and help increase mobility.
“Another focus is on consumers who eat
convenience food such as pizzas, yogurts and take-home meals. These rely heavily on innovation, particularly as the world demands convenience foods that are better for you. There we see continued growth.”
Monaghan says demand for dairy is great-est in ‘emerging markets’ where there are at least two billion consumers. And by 2020 there will be 500 million more middle class people.
“We are not trying to feed the world; we are trying to feed those middle class customers who can afford to pay us well for our product. There is a new generation of con-sumers with more money to spend.”
MEANWHILE CAROLYN Mortland, Fonterra’s policy manager, says Fonterra and its farmers recognise the need to meet changing environmental require-ments being set by regional councils.
Fonterra is putting a lot of resources into this because it recognises much of its competitive advantage as coming from the country’s ‘natural bounty’ -- temperate climate, good soils, great pasture and clean water.
“As stewards of the land we understand that these natural resources underpin and support farmers businesses and our cooperative. We make 10,600 environment farm visits every year.
“Note also that farmers have fenced 24,000km of waterways in New Zealand and have made 4000 effluent system improvements. This means that a third of our farmers have invested capital and changed systems or management practices to ensure their effluent systems are capable of complying with regional council requirements for 365 days of the year.”
Mortland says the challenge with councils is getting a regulatory framework that allows for responsible, sustainable and profitable use of natural resources.
Farmers aware of environment
“We are not trying to feed the world; we are trying to feed those middle class customers who can afford to pay us well for our product. There is a new generation of consumers with more money to spend.”
RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
NEWS 11
This milky ‘Barr’ is on themA RECENTLY opened self-service ‘milk bar’ outside the Feilding farm of Stephen and Mary Barr is enjoy-ing a great response from passers-by.
While many farms are now selling raw milk at the farm gate, the Barrs’ operation is different: they sell A2 milk via a self-service system that is sophisticated but simple.
After only a few weeks Barrs are now selling 100L a day, but hope to grow that to 500L.
Barrs’ main business centres on 850 cows in two herds, but a special herd of 22 A2 cows supplies their new venture.
“The people like the fact they are getting the whole product, not milk with stuff extracted out of it then put back together; it’s just as it comes out. The customers can even see the cows its coming out of if they want because we keep them nearby and people can walk out and see the animals,” says Stephen.
“We milk the A2 first in the morn-ing, but they get lot of extra teat prep-aration and sanitation before the cups; that’s how we keep the bacteria
very low. It’s much lower than we’d normally do if it was just milk going into the vat.”
The new ‘milk shop’ is well designed with excellent signage and ample parking. It’s only 100m from the farm’s main modern dairy shed. The A2 vending equipment is Italian which Barr says best meets their par-ticular needs.
The vending machine is simple to operate, but if people do have a problem, they can use a phone in the shop to get assistance. Mary Barr says they’d been looking for some time to add value to their milk.
“We looked at cheese making and it wasn’t for us, then we read about other people using milking vending machines in the South Island. So last February we went to Golden Bay and Nelson and looked at machines there and thought ‘that’s for us, we can do that’.”
Stephen is a great supporter of A2 cows and has been breeding them for 14 years. He’s naturally an advocate of the health benefits of A2 milk.
“People can have intolerances to the normal A1 milk, but with the A2 we have people reporting their asthma is improving and people who haven’t
been able to drink milk because they have reactions to it are now drinking A2 milk.”
The A2 cows get special attention on Barr’s farm. They get milked first and their milk is put into a special vat where it’s snap-chilled down to 4 degrees and put into smaller vats for transfer to the milk bar. Here it is kept at 2-4 degrees.
“The milk is fresh every day,” Mary says. “We don’t wait until it runs out. Whatever is left goes and new milk comes in the morning. We lab test our milk twice a week for all the nas-ties you can think of, so we are confi-dent the milk is safe to drink.”
One of the Barr’s goals is to help bridge the gap between town and country and the milk shop at Arran Farm is doing that.
“There is nothing like coming in and buying your milk and seeing the cows it comes from to make that link. Over time we’ll have newslet-ters about what’s happening on the farm and we’ll slowly ramp up that information so that people will get a bit more familiar with what’s happen-ing here,” says Stephen.
PETER BURKE
Arran Farms Stephen Barr with a bottle of his A2 milk, which is proving popular with customers.
Potash prices drop due to supply
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FERTILISER COMPANY Ravens-down, last week, reduced the price of potash by 9% on the back of a large world inventory.
Ravensdown says low global demand last year built up a large potash stockpile, allowing it to drop the price from $783/tonne to $710/t.
But prices could rise up again as demand from China and Asia increase. Potassium is a vital nutri-ent for all plants. Among many other things it helps control is the open-ing and closing of the small holes in leaves called stomata that regulate water use by the plant.
Ravensdown chief executive Greg Campbell says this will be welcome news for farmers who are already looking at lower input prices than previous years across a variety of fer-tilisers thanks to supply and demand trends on the world stage.
“March and April tend to be the times when potash is applied to dairy pastures to replace potassium which has either moved from soil to the milk or been removed from the soil in the form of hay and silage crops.”
This price drop follows the $80/t reduction in potassium chloride in June 2013. Ravensdown is already
seeing the impact of that price drop with a 25% increase in potash sales compared with the previous year.
“When prices were high, the amount of potash being applied was below maintenance requirements.
Whilst Ravensdown is seeing an increase in sales of potassium chlo-ride, Campbell sounded a note of caution.
“Demand from China and other Asian countries is increasing so it’s only a matter of time before the global prices factor that in as stocks left over from last year run down,” he says.
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
12 NEWS
Ahuwhenua winners announced this weekTHE THREE finalists for the 2014 Ahuwhenua Trophy for excellence in Maori dairy farming will be announced at a function at Parliament this Wednes-day (Feb 18).
The function will be
hosted by the Minister of Maori Affairs, Dr Pita Shar-ples, and the Minister for Primary Industry, Nathan Guy, will speak.
The competition alter-nates between sheep and beef and dairy farming; the
2014 competition is for the top-performing Maori dairy farm. The three final-ists will be chosen from a number of Maori trusts, incorporations and indi-vidual farmers nationwide. The finalists will then
undergo another round of judging including each staging a field day on their farms, open to the public. These will be in March so people can see the farms in action before the cows are dried off in late autumn.
Chairman of the Ahu-whenua Trophy manage-ment committee Kingi Smiler says Wellington is chosen as the finals venue to help draw more atten-tion to the significance of the trophy and to highlight
the contribution of Maori agribusiness to the New Zealand economy.
“For example, Maori are significant play-ers in the dairy industry: 10% of milk [is produced by] Maori farmers. In Taranaki, a large Maori trust -- Parininihi ki Wait-otara -- is Fonterra’s larg-est supplier.
“And Maori place great importance on sustainable farming practices. This is an integral part of our farming systems.”
The Wellington event will also promote the award for the Young Maori Dairy Farmer of the Year.
“We have some great emerging talent coming through the industry and
this competition is a way of encouraging our young people to make a career in farming.”
Smiler says the Ahu-whenua Trophy competi-tion is a great opportunity for Maori trusts, incorpo-rations and individuals to showcase their successful dairy farming operations, some among the top-per-forming farms in New Zea-land.
The Ahuwhenua Trophy was inaugurated 81 years ago by Sir Apir-ana Ngata and the gover-nor-general at the time, Lord Bledisloe, to encour-age Maori to improve their farming operations.
Kingi Smiler
A LIST of 12 foods most likely to contain pesticide resi-dues in New Zealand has been slammed by crop protec-tion body AgCarm and HortNZ.
Safe Food Campaign (SFC) convenor Alison White gave “an update” on the organisation’s so-called “dirty dozen” on Wednesday last week, however the figures appear to have been released in November last year.
White singled out herbicide chlorpyrifos, the active of Versatil, among other products.
“Prenatal exposure to chlorpyifos is permanently alter-ing children’s brain structure,” she maintained.
AgCarm chief executive Graeme Peters says SFC’s report is unscientific and misrepresents the facts.
“Crop protection products are all thoroughly and repeatedly reviewed for safety and the mere detection of residues does not affect the safety of food.”
Peters says it would be impossible to eat the amount of produce required to ingest anything close to a dangerous amount of pesticide, as residue levels in fruit and vegeta-bles are, in most cases, at the limits of detection.
“What’s most important is that consumers get the required five to 10 servings of fruits and vegetables each day.”
HortNZ communication manager Leigh Catley says the ‘Dirty Dozen’ is unhelpful, unscientific and could damage the reputation of the New Zealand fruit and vegetable industry here and overseas.
“The most recent Total Diet Study showed NZ foods have the lowest rate of residue detection they have ever had ... and this reduction is an ongoing trend over the last decade.
“Some products are more susceptible than others to residue detection, for a variety of reasons including the shape of the product, but it is very rare for the residues to go anywhere near the maximum levels set for them.
“New Zealand’s growers grow to the toughest stan-dards applied anywhere in the world, regulated by themselves, their customers and New Zealand law.” – Andrew Swallow
Dirty dozen dodgy – AgCarm
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
NEWS 13
Joint Sino/NZ dairy researchRESEARCH TO improve the management of efflu-ent on Chinese dairy farms is underway. And if the three-year trial succeeds it may also apply on New Zealand dairy farms.
The project, on a dairy farm not far from Beijing, entails drying shed efflu-ent and spreading this on crops used to feed cows.
Involved are the New Zealand Ministry for the Environment (MfE), AgResearch, Fonterra, the Chinese Ministry for Envi-ronmental Protection (MEP) and Tsinghua Uni-versity.
MfE deputy secre-tary for natural resources policy Guy Beatson says the project is one result of the FTA China and New Zealand signed in 2008. It reflects China’s emphasis
on environmental issues, especially water quality.
Coincidently the Chi-nese and New Zealand governments had begun looking at water qual-ity and this led to a ‘water delegation’ from China coming to New Zealand. This roughly coincided with the Land and Water Forum (LAWF) and one thing led to another, Beat-son says.
“We needed to find the exper-tise we could bring to the table -- mainly research -- something that suited the two gov-ernments’ interests. We made some connections with AgResearch and obvi-ously when it comes to water the links to Fonterra are important. So between
AgResearch, Fonterra and Tsinghua Uni-versity this project devel-oped.”
All the parties bring different but important values to the project, Beat-son says. MfE and MEP provide the government overlay, AgResearch and
Tsinghua University pro-vide quality research capa-bility. Fonterra, on whose farm the trial is being done (Yutian 2), provides commercial and farm-ing expertise. MfE sees the project costing $100k over three years, mostly to pay for the work by AgResearch. China is also contributing.
Essential to the proj-ect is that China prohib-its spraying liquid effluent on crops. Chinese dairy farms commonly use bio-digestors, not widely used in New Zealand. And since most cows in China are housed inside, the use of pasture is limited.
This project involves de-watering the effluent
from the cow houses and turning it into solid form for spreading on crops, especially the maize widely used in China as a dairy cow feed.
Also, the Chinese use a lot of nitrogen fertiliser to grow crops and Beat-son says if this trial is suc-cessful the Chinese dairy industry could see a way to reduce the use of chem-ical nitrogen.
“Where this trial is taking place there are many cropping farms where the effluent can be used. [The trial is] look-ing at the growth effects and the costs. Potentially the Chinese have a free resource so you’d think the cost would be low and the solidified effluent would be as good as nitro-gen fertiliser….
“It reflects the kind of rigor the Chinese gov-ernment brings to these
things. They must demon-strate to a range of people that it works before they decide to extend it fur-ther.”
Demand for liquid milk is enormous in China, reflected by Fonterra’s moves to produce 1 billion litres of milk on its farms there, where it now has 15,000 cows in milk. Other Chinese dairy companies have big expansion plans.
“The scale of these things is enormous,” Beat-son points out. “Anything that has environmen-tal benefits and strips out costs, and at the same time raises productivity, has to be beneficial. That’s why this project is important, because if we can help the Chinese government find ways to better manage dairy effluent it will [bene-fit] their waterways.”
PETER BURKE
Most cows in China are housed indoors. Bottom left: MFE deputy secretary Guy Beatson.
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
14 NEWS
‘ETHICAL TRADING’, emerging worldwide, is beginning to take effect in markets where consumers are more affluent and well-informed, or perhaps are misinformed.
Such people not only want good quality food, but heed the way food is produced, issues such as the envi-ronment, conditions of farm dwellers
and workers, and animal welfare.Dr David Mellor says people can
become emotionally upset and may be turned off products if they perceive there are problems with the farming system, including the way animals are treated.
“Normal farm practices are under scrutiny. It’s important for
those engaged in farming prac-tices that involve animals to keep that in mind when they are deter-mining how they will undertake these activities. They need to review the way they have done things for many years and decide whether this is still appropriate from a public perception perspective,” he says.
Perception means everything
Are there ‘nicer’ ways to kill calves?A CAPTIVE-BOLT gun or a rifle may be a more ‘palatable’ way to kill calves than ‘blunt force trauma’ (hammer blow) to the head, but the latter method is often most practical on-farm -- and it’s legal.
So says the chairman of the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee, (NAWAC), Dr John Hellstrom.
He acknowledged to Rural News that there will be times on-farm when blunt force trauma with a hammer will be the only way to euthanase an animal, especially if it’s out in a paddock.
‘Blunt force trauma’ using a hammer is in the spotlight because a video in Chile showed this practice, causing public uproar. Hellstrom says the prob-lem with blunt force is that it’s fine if done by someone who knows what he is doing, but someone who’s never done it before may cause suffering by not hit-ting an animal in the right place.
“There is a public perception that killing calves in this way has a big ‘yuk
factor’. It seems a very unpleasant way of killing an animal, yet we know from a long history that if it’s done properly it’s as effective as any other way. In fact it’s probably kinder to the animals than using a drug because the drug doesn’t take effect immediately and the animal may have some distress while it’s dying. Whereas with the blunt force, one minute it’s alive, the next minute it’s dead.”
Hellstrom says the issue was looked at a couple of years ago when the dairy code was reviewed and it was decided no change was necessary.
Though a hammer to the head is legal, dairy farmers are being encour-aged by the wider industry to stop kill-ing unwanted bobby calves this way. They should instead use a captive-bolt device or a rifle, observers say.
One industry source told Rural News that blunt force trauma, by a hammer or captive bolt, may only stun or render the animal unconscious, so that further “intervention” would be needed to kill the unconscious animal.
PETER BURKE
Lethal injection is seen as imprac-tical because only a vet can administer it; farmers cannot be supplied with the drug.
Since at calving time it is usually impossible to have a vet on-farm, the law allows blunt force trauma.
The professor of animal welfare sci-ence at Massey University, Dr David Mellor, says all humans are “genetically wired” to care for and protect the “vul-nerable young” of human and other spe-cies and he says the outcry over the issue
in Chile is quite predictable. There is a strong emotional element
in this event and some people working on farms don’t always cope with it.
But Mellor, like other experts, says blunt force trauma done properly is satisfactory.
“While in animal welfare terms it might be completely acceptable if done well, the captive-bolt gun and lethal injection are aesthetically more palat-able because they are apparently less brutal. The use of a rifle is also seen as more acceptable.”
David Mellor
PW
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
NEWS 15
KVH seeks more controls on imported kiwifruitKIWIFRUIT VINE Health wants tougher import con-trols on Italian kiwifruit after an off-duty scientist found a pest in a Tauranga supermarket which could threaten the industry.
The Plant and Food Research scientist found white peach scale, believed to be alive, on the imported fruit and reported the find to Kiwi-fruit Vine Health (KVH). MPI investigated and con-cluded the scales were non-viable and released the remaining kiwifruit from the consignment after no further scale were found.
KVH wants more mea-sures to stop white peach scale coming in; about 800,000kg of Italian kiwi-fruit are imported into New Zealand each year. The current import health standard for Italian kiwi-fruit requires a pre-export inspection for any visually detectable pests and cold disinfestation for fruit fly but no specific treatment for white peach scale. KVH has asked MPI provide the risk assessment the department used to con-clude this pathway does not require further con-trols.
“We understand MPI believes the pathway [car-ries a low risk] of intro-ducing white peach scale,” KVH chief executive Barry O’Neil told Rural News.
“A risk assessment is based on the probability of entry [multiplied by] the
impact that test may pres-ent. We want to be clear that MPI has assessed cor-rectly the probability and they understand fully the impact white peach scale would have on our indus-try if it was introduced.
“We want to under-stand the science behind their position. At this stage we do not understand, and we think there needs to be more action or more measures in place to stop peach scale coming in.
“At the moment the import standard for kiwi-fruit from Italy doesn’t have any specific measures in place to stop white peach scale coming into New Zealand.”
Last week, KVH was awaiting that risk assess-ment information so as to analyse it.
“In the meantime MPI has agreed to their border inspectors increasing their vigilance on fruit arriv-ing at their border. We are happy for that to happen but the next step is to review the risk assess-ment.”
White peach scale (Pseudaulacaspis pentag-ona) has caused signifi-cant harm to the kiwifruit industry in Latina, Italy, KVH says. During the 2004 season, WPS caused an estimated fruit loss of 10-20% to Hort16A crops. WPS could easily adapt to New Zealand conditions and is considered a seri-ous threat to our kiwifruit industry.
KVH wants growers and the public to watch
Barry O’Neil
Impacted kiwifruit industry in Latina, Italy. • Could easily adapt to New Zealand conditions. • Serious threat to our kiwifruit industry• Adult female scale immobile on the host plant, adult
male emerges as winged insect.• White to yellowish protective shell, males turn
orange. ª Found in USA, Europe, Australia and the Pacific
Islands. • Can cause early leaf and fruit drop, stunts trees and
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
16 NEWS
US interest in wool resurgesTWO NEW Zealand wool companies are reporting resurging interest in wool carpets in the US as its economy recovers.
Representatives of Elders, with its Just Shorn brand, and Wools of New Zealand, with its Laneve brand, have this year been promoting their products in the US, getting a feel for the market.
But consumers need to better understand wool,
especially that sheep are not killed for their fleece, Elders managing director Stu Chapman told Rural News.
Chapman attended the CCA Global (CCA) floor-ing convention In Phoe-nix, Arizona. He attended with Just Shorn director Howie Gardner and New Zealand shearing legend David Fagan.
“There’s a resur-gence of interest with the US economy improving remarkably in the last 12 months,” Fagan says. “The
demand for wool carpet is increasing but still not quick enough. We need more education and that’s what we are doing there with retailers and con-sumers through social net-works.
“There’s a certain cli-entele prepared to pay a little more for wool which has obviously natural, sus-tainable, environmentally friendly qualities about it. Those customers gener-ally know the value of wool – the attributes wool has -- and they are prepared to
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of Fagan shearing sheep went nationwide through the Fox Television net-work. “The objective was to show consumers that a sheep is not only not harmed, but also not killed, when the wool is removed,” says Chapman.
“There is lot of innu-endo and misconcep-tion about shearing over there. A lot of US consum-ers relate fur to wool and, of course, to get fur the animal is killed.
“We have been plan-ning education for four years through the CCA network and its resellers and through social media and our Just Shorn web-site. We pay particular attention to the attributes of wool.
“The key thing is to have our resellers, the front line staff, upskilled. They sell the benefits and sell it up. CCA puts many of its frontline resell-ing people through its online university which includes a wool training programme. It’s compre-hensive.”
Nevertheless it is a hard
grind. “We are picking up the pieces of 40 years of negligence of the promo-tion of wool.”
Chapman says Just Shorn sales are improv-ing every month and have done so since February last year. “We’re in Carpet One; that was always our goal. It is the flagship of CCA in America and we are in over 500 stores. So volumes improve every month; it is a pleasing trend. We would like it to go a bit faster but we are doing everything we can.”
Just Shorn will be launched in Australia in
late March in 50 Carpet One stores. As Australians are more used to wool than Americans he expects it to be easier but correct marketing is needed to ensure the volume of sales.
“Godfrey Hirst is our manufacturing partner and is very supportive of the programme. They have representation in Amer-ica and Australia with reps on the road calling on all these stores and running training evenings, so there is a lot going on.”
The story behind Just Shorn is a point of differ-ence and the branding
is working exception-ally well. “It’s becoming more recognisable every day and reps have gone to every convention since it launched; it gets better and better.
“Some stories from resellers are very hearten-ing. They are having a lot of success. We just wish we could have 100 of them doing that. But we are in 550 stores now and that’s keeping us very busy.
“If we have the option to go to 1000 or 1500 stores, which is very much a possibility, we’d be hard-out trying to support that.”
A MEETING has been held on the possible merger of Wool Equities Ltd and Primary Wool Cooperative Ltd. The latter owns 50% of Elders Primary Wool and 50% of the Just Shorn brand.
Wool Equities chairman Cliff Heath confirmed to Rural News that the two boards had met on February
5. “We’ve had one meeting, we’ve discussed possible outcomes, what could be achieved and decided it’s ongoing to the extent of investi-gating the practicalities.”
Wool Equities, set up for strong-wool growers in 2003 when the New Zealand Wool Board was wound up, has 7800 farmer
shareholders. Its website Just Shorn says
when it was launched in 2010, 2% of carpet sold in the US was wool, using about 45% of New Zealand’s strong-wool clip. So even a small increase in wool carpets sold in the US would benefit New Zealand growers, the website says.
Wool merger talks continue
Shearing live on US Fox TV Network, from left: David Fagan; Cory McKloskey (US Fox Morning Show Reporter); Howie Gardner and Elders NZ’s Stu Chapman.
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
NEWS 17
Conor English will step down from his role of Fed Farmers in July.
FEDERATED FARMERS chief executive Conor Eng-lish believes it’s the right time to leave the organisa-tion; he points out that over the years he’s spent ten years with the rural lobby group.
His resignation will take effect in July after the Feds annual conference. The federation operates on a three year election cycle and this year will also see a new president and several new board members elected.
English says he’s deliberately given plenty of notice so that there will be a seamless transition for the new board and chief executive. He’s been the chief for six years, but had worked there previously as a policy advisor.
He says the organisation is in now in good heart. English says when he came to Feds there were some challenges.
“But we’ve got into a good space and it’s been chal-lenging to do that. We are well a respected organisa-tion, and financially we are sound and with a growing membership. We are ‘plugged into’ Wellington and the thing farmers need to understand is that Welling-ton is dramatically different from the provinces. The way Wellington operates is very different from how a farm operates and that’s why you need an organisa-tion like Feds and people like myself and other staff here who can navigate the rabbit burrows that there are in Wellington.”
Conor English says during his watch there have been significant policy gains in the areas of climate change, water storage and broadband.
“The RMA reforms going through now are effec-tively similar to the six point plan we had a year or so ago. Local government reform has been a major issue for us and so has the removal of gift duty which helps succession planning.”
What English is not saying is what he will do next, other than to say he is “excited the opportunities that are around”.
“I grew up in a household that talked a lot about the three ‘P’s’: the Prime Minister, the Pope and the President of Federated Farmers. It has been a great privilege for me to lead this organisation in the capac-ity of chief executive and to serve our fantastic farm-ers and rural community,” he says.
Federated Farmers president Bruce Wills has praised the contribution made by English saying they “will miss his energy, skill, talent and experience”. Wills has also praised English for giving six months’ notice saying it will make for a smooth transition to a new chief executive.
Feds chief excited to be leaving
PETER BURKE
Irish eyes smiling on New Zealand farmsIRISH DAIRY farmers are looking to New Zealand as a way of bench-marking their operations, reports The Irish Independent. The inter-est in New Zealand comes as milk quotas in Europe are due to be lifted next year and Irish farmers are seeing this as means of lifting production and gaining new mar-kets, especially in Asia.
“Having been shackled by quotas for so long a whole genera-tion of dairy farmers are bursting to
break out the doors and swing into action,” the newspaper says.
“You are nobody in Ireland these days if you are not switching to dairying or expanding your exist-ing dairying enterprise.”
But this comes with a warn-ing that higher production does not necessarily equate with higher profit and that while gross incomes may be on the rise, profits have not risen in tandem.
The article points to some
“unsavory issues” with the New Zealand dairy industry, such as the slaughter of bobby calves which it says are treated as “waste product” in New Zealand.
It also talks about environ-mental issues facing New Zealand farmers and the ‘dirty dairying’ campaign they have had to deal with.
There is also reference to the soils in many parts of Ireland which have drainage issues making them
unsuitable for dairying. And Irish farmers are warned
about getting caught up in the whirlwind of a dairy boom. If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably isn’t true, the article says.
For several years Irish farmers have felt strangled by EU regula-tions which have stifled dairy pro-duction from what it was in the ‘good old days’.
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
18 WORLD
Drought funding fast-tracked?DROUGHT-STRICKEN Australian farmers may get Government fund-ing sooner than expected.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has promised to bring forward cash for drought-stricken farmers after impassioned calls from coalition partner, the Nationals.
Speaking on ABC Radio last week, Abbott described the drought affecting farmers as “a very serious issue”.
“Yes there is a new package of drought assistance coming and we’re looking at bringing that for-ward. The problem is now and it does need to be dealt with now,” he says.
Farmers in parts of Queensland have not had decent rain for two years. Last week Agriculture Min-ister Barnaby Joyce, also the deputy leader of Nationals, visited affected farmers. Joyce is prepar-
ing a drought package for cabinet approval.
The Coalition Government is split on drought funding. Treasurer Joe Hockey appeared to scotch the idea of extra drought money, saying recently that drought assistance was already available to farmers. Hockey says that “the age of enti-tlement is over, and the age of per-sonal responsibility has begun”.
However, National MPs are
publicly pushing for assistance and are brushing aside compari-sons with the multimillion-dollar packages sought for SPC Ardmona and General Motors Holden
National Farmers Federation president Brent Finlay has wel-comed Abbott’s comments.
But we need to see that acknowledgement reflected in a comprehensive package of assis-tance measures, says Finlay.
Floods ravage UK countrysideFLOOD-RAVAGED UK farmers are calling for more fund-ing for flood defence management.
While welcoming the Government’s promise to spend $250 million on flood maintenance and repairs, National Farmers Union president Peter Kendall said more needed to be done.
Parts of the UK have been battered by severe weather for months. Forecasters predict the storms to persist this week.
Following a visit to flood-hit areas of Somerset, Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, Kendall says Britain needs more resilient and better managed flood defences to protect life and the environment.
Climate change scientists predict precisely this type of event becoming more frequent in future decades, he adds.
“Because of this we need more resilient, better man-aged flood defences with the capacity to protect life, prop-erty and farmland from excessive flooding. We must use all the tools available to us and make dredging a priority.
“Declining maintenance in rivers and watercourses and reducing investment in pumps and infrastructure is reported across the country. It’s not all about Somerset of course, but Somerset is a prime example of two decades of under-investment.
“We must see a re-balancing of flood defence spend-ing towards maintenance, which has declined by $98 mil-lion over the last five years, as part of the aim to reduce the severity of flooding.”
Kendall wants quality farmland given much higher pri-ority in flood protection.
The Government’s policy on flood defence must recog-nise the importance of food production and the business of farming and any funding provided for recovery needs to reflect this, he says.
“Some of the debate in recent weeks has been about choosing between protecting urban and rural areas. This is an incredibly simplistic, not to mention dangerous, argu-ment when in fact both must be protected and have a role to play in reducing flood severity.”
NFU members James and Jenny Winslade have had to evacuate 550 cattle from their Somerset farm, helped by farming friends. Ten tractors took their stock to Sedge-moor livestock market from where they are now in seven locations. The market staff helped to sort the paperwork for the cattle while Jenny decided where the stock would go and how they would be fed.
Despite building earth banks, their farmhouse is waist deep in water and sewage and the cattle sheds have flooded. The cattle feed isn’t insured and they’ve lost their grass.
Jenny Winslade describes the situation as a disaster zone. “This is so stressful. Any farmer knows the last thing you want to do is move cattle to market and then to other sheds.”
RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
WORLD 19
New US Farm Bill gets mixed receptionTWO BIG American live-stock groups say they will fiercely oppose a compro-mise farm bill agreed to by House of Representa-tives and Senate agricul-ture leaders that includes an end to direct subsidies to farmers in favour of beefed-up crop insurance.
The National Cattle-men’s Beef Association and the National Pork Pro-ducers Council almost instantly announced their opposition because the bill does not contain a fix for mandatory country-of-ori-gin labeling (COOL) that would avert retaliatory tariffs on a broad range of US products by Canada and Mexico.
The cattlemen say the bill, which President Obama signed into law late last week, does not address the priority issues for its members.
“We are calling on Con-gress to fix the mistakes they have made, mistakes that are costing cattle-men and women money every day,” president Scott George says in a state-ment.
“Mistakes like man-datory country-of-ori-gin labelling (MCOOL), which has already resulted in steep discounts to our producers and caused prejudice against our larg-est trading partners. This programme was created without the consent of producers and has been a failure by every measure.
“This farm bill is foun-dationally flawed and the livestock sector is stand-ing shoulder-to-shoulder in opposition to a farm bill that will cause greater harm to rural America.”
George told a telecon-ference the bill is a slap in the face for the livestock industry.
The National Pork Pro-ducers Council complains the bill fails to address three issues facing the US pork industry. It wants a permanent fix to the so-called GIPSA rule -- the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Adminis-tration legislation regu-lating their activities -- as well as changes to COOL to prevent retaliation against US pork produc-ers, and an amendment to prevent states from man-dating production prac-tices across their boarders.
“Because of the detri-mental effect a farm bill without these amend-ments will have on the US pork industry, the National Pork Producers Council is asking for your help to oppose the Farm Bill,” it says in a note to its members.
But National Farm-ers Union president Roger Johnson sent a letter to Senate majority leader Harry Reid and Speaker of the House John Boehner calling for the bill to be passed.
“Farm bill conference committee members have agreed to a compromise that will provide farmers, ranchers, rural residents and America’s consumers with policy certainty over the next five years,” John-son said.
The NFU says it is pleased with the bill for a variety of reasons.
“The bill includes fixed-reference prices to provide assistance to farmers only when truly necessary,” Johnson says.
“It provides a strong crop insurance title and about $4 billion in live-stock disaster assistance. The bill increases fund-ing for the farmers market and local foods promotion programmes and related initiatives.
“We are also encour-aged by the inclusion of robust mandatory fund-ing levels for renew-able energy programmes. We’re also happy that the bill preserves the ability of American family farm-ers and ranchers to distin-guish their products in the marketplace through the existing country-of-origin labeling (COOL) law.”
The National Milk Pro-ducers Federation is sup-porting the bill.
President and chief executive Jim Mulhern says the federation worked with agriculture leaders in the House and Senate to develop a margin insur-ance programme that will offer dairy farmers an effective safety net.
“Despite its limitations, we believe the revised pro-gramme will help address the volatility in farm-ers’ milk prices, as well as feed costs, and pro-vide appropriate signals to help address supply and demand,” he says.
The legislation had to be passed by both the
ALAN HARMANHouse of Representatives and the Senate before being signed by President Obama.
The House and Senate agriculture leaders said in a statement the legisla-tion provides certainty to the 16 million Americans whose jobs depend on agriculture while stream-lining and consolidating
numerous programmes to improve their effective-ness and reduce duplica-tion, and cutting down on programme misuse.
Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK), chairman of the house agriculture com-mittee, says the bill also strengthens the commit-ment to support farm-ers and ranchers affected
by natural disasters or big economic losses, and renews a national com-mitment to protect land, water and other natural resources.
“We are putting in place sound policy that is good for farmers, ranch-ers, consumers, and those who have hit difficult times,” he said.
House Agriculture Committee chairman Frank Lucas.
MARKET SNAPSHOT BEEF MARKET TRENDS LAMB MARKET TRENDS
RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
Stock as security who would have thought
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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 -5 4.45 4.50 3.95M2 Bull - 300kg -5 4.38 4.43 4.00P2 Cow - 230kg n/c 3.50 3.50 3.33M Cow - 200kg n/c 3.35 3.35 3.15
Local Trade - 230kg -10 4.35 4.45 4.00SI P2 Steer - 300kg -2 4.28 4.30 3.80
M2 Bull - 300kg -5 4.10 4.15 3.85P2 Cow - 230kg n/c 3.05 3.05 3.00M Cow - 200kg n/c 2.85 2.85 2.85
Local Trade - 230kg n/c 4.30 4.30 3.95
NZ Slaughter Total Monthly Kill
Change Dec Nov Last Year 5yr Ave
Cattle NI -8% 127,362 138,316 139,046 146,121 Cattle SI -0% 44,275 44,389 38,571 43,193 Cattle NZ -6% 171,637 182,705 177,617 189,314 Bull NI +15% 45,115 39,115 47,871 47,200 Bull SI +13% 6,197 5,487 6,796 7,214 Str NI -15% 34,770 40,911 36,552 35,822 Str SI +4% 15,769 15,201 13,606 15,806 Cows NI -12% 21,475 24,496 27,381 31,895 Cows SI -6% 10,528 11,175 8,389 9,029
Export Market DemandChange Last Week 2 Wks
Ago Last Year 5yr Ave
95CL US$/lb n/c 2.05 2.05 2.20 1.83NZ$/kg -4 5.50 5.54 5.82 5.55
Procurement IndicatorChange 2Wks Ago 3 Wks
Ago Last Year 5yr Ave
% Returned NI +1% 80.5% 79.4% 70.42% 70.6%% Returned SI +1% 75.5% 74.9% 67.8% 65.8%
LAMB PRICES
c/kgCWTChange Last
Week2 Wks
AgoLast Year
NI Lamb YM - 13.5kg +8 5.56 5.48 4.46PM - 16.0kg +8 5.58 5.50 4.48PX - 19.0kg +8 5.60 5.52 4.50PH - 22.0kg +8 5.61 5.53 4.51
Mutton MX1 - 21kg -5 3.45 3.50 2.60SI Lamb YM - 13.5kg +13 5.58 5.45 4.46
PM - 16.0kg +13 5.58 5.45 4.48PX - 19.0kg +13 5.58 5.45 4.50PH - 22.0kg +13 5.58 5.45 4.51
Mutton MX1 - 21kg n/c 3.28 3.28 2.53
NZ Slaughter Total Monthly Kill
1000s Change Dec Nov Last Year 5yr Ave
Lamb NI +19% 906 759 929 945Lamb SI +42% 956 674 891 1122Lamb NZ +30% 1862 1433 1820 2067Mutton NZ +51% 641 425 610 683
Export Market DemandChange Last
Week2 Wks
Ago Last Year 5yr Ave
UK Leg £/lb n/c 2.10 2.10 1.45 1.81NZ$/kg -16 9.19 9.35 6.03 8.58
Procurement IndicatorChange 2Wks
Ago3 Wks
Ago Last Year 5yr Ave
% Returned NI +1% 61.2% 60.2% 78.3% 65.1%% Returned SI +0% 59.5% 59.0% 78.0% 62.1%
Venison PricesChange Last
Week2 Wks
Ago Last Year 5yr Ave
NI Stag - 60kg n/c 6.20 6.20 6.30 6.98SI Stag - 60kg n/c 6.25 6.25 6.50 7.31
NEWS PRICE WATCH
RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
Stock as security who would have thought
When looking for smarter ways to farm, don’t be limited by traditional lending practices. Borrow up to 100% of your stock’s purchase price with no repayments for up to twelve months. We can secure the finance on the stock you buy, not your farm assets.
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BEEF
Export cattle prices hold over Christmas
A drier end to January for some regions in the North Island resulted in cattle slaughter rates being steady to busy, with prices subsequently retreating as processors looked to bring their margins back into line. Reports suggest that capacity is being managed carefully to spread the kill until cow slaughter comes on stream. The timing of this is largely dependent on Mother Nature. In the South Island good cattle feed levels continue to hold stock back from the plants. Prices in the South are still facing downwards pressure, but at a slower pace than the North. 300kg cwt export steers averaged $4.45/kg in the North last week and $4.25-$4.30/kg in the South. Export bulls of similar weights averaged between $4.35-$4.40/kg in the North and $4.10/kg in the South.
USDA report lowest cattle inventory since 1951
USDA released its annual cattle inventory report last week, revealing a 1.8% decrease in cattle and calves from this time last year; the lowest inventory since 1951. However, this was a smaller decline than analysts had picked, and combined with a rising inventory of beef replacement heifers, indicates that cow-calf operators may be starting to rebuild herds. The report supports a continuing decline in cow slaughter for 2014, leading to tighter supplies and continued high prices through 2014 and 2015. These factors will result in a higher demand for imported product, and if drought stays away, demand will be even greater as retention will be higher. Imported prices should strengthen on the back of the tight supplies and feed back to NZ farmgate prices.
LAMB
Easter trade lifts export lamb prices
Export lamb prices have firmed into Feburary as premiums for the easter chilled trade have been introduced. Spot prices are now largely equal to contract prices, with some contracts even coming in under spot prices. Overseas demand for the easter trade has been good and prices into the EU look to be significantly up on last year. The tight global supplies have meant that any price resistance from some end uses can be countered by demand from alternative markets. In the North Island a 16cwt lamb was averaging $5.70/kg gross last week with the South Island $5.60/kg gross. Mutton prices remain firm at $3.45/kg gross in the North and $3.30/kg gross in the South. These prices have resulted in a higher number of lesser quality 5yr ewes ending up at the works due to low store prices.
Feed availablity limiting store lamb numbers in
North Island
The store lamb market in the North Island is dominated by buyers, as traditional store sellers are choosing to take their own lambs to higher weights as feed conditions are plentiful. Numbers of store lambs available in the North Island are likely to be limited as a result. In the South Island there has been less demand from traditional finishers as dairy support and baleage contracts appear more attractive. In the North Island 30kg lines made $2.40-$2.60kg last week and in the South similar weighted lambs earned $$2.30-$2.50/kg.
DAIRY
Russian demand underpins firm butter prices
NZ milk production for this season is picked to increase 8% on last years drought affected production. This is welcomed by manufacturers as inventories continue to be built. Prices for all dairy products are firm, with strong demand for butter from Russia underpinning significant price increases. Some manufacturers are finding the combined margins of butter and SMP equal to or above WMP and are attempting to channel more milk to SMP and butter production. Prices at the latest GlobalDairyTrade acution rose, led by butter. Butter rose 2.6% to the highest level in a year, having jumped 11% in the previous auction.
WOOL PRICE WATCH DAIRY PRICE WATCH
Indicators in NZ$ Change 05-Feb 30-Jan Last Year Indicators in NZ$/T Change Last 2
WksPrev. 2
WksLast Year
Coarse Xbred Indic. -10 4.91 5.01 3.80 Butter +394 5683 5288 4051
Fine Xbred Indicator -9 5.08 5.17 4.78 Skim Milk Powder +237 6127 5889 4111
Lamb Indicator -5 5.36 5.41 5.17 Whole Milk Powder +136 6311 6175 4022
Mid Micron Indic. - - - 8.93 Cheddar +115 6004 5889 4766
Overseas Price Indicators Overseas Price Indicators
Indicators in US$/kg Change 05-Feb 30-Jan Last Year Indicators in US$/T Change Last 2
WksPrev. 2
WksLast Year
Coarse Xbred Indicator -9 4.03 4.12 3.17 Butter +238 4638 4400 3400Fine Xbred Indicator -8 4.17 4.25 3.99 Skim Milk Powder +100 5000 4900 3450Lamb Indicator -4 4.40 4.44 4.31 Whole Milk Powder +13 5150 5138 3375Mid Micron Indicator - - - 7.46 Cheddar n/c 4900 4900 4000
CURRENCY WATCH
vs. NZ Dollar Last Week 2 Wks Ago 4 Wks Ago Last Year
US dollar 0.822 0.816 0.825 0.833Euro 0.605 0.602 0.606 0.622UK pound 0.504 0.495 0.501 0.530Aus dollar 0.920 0.927 0.927 0.810Japan yen 83.82 83.88 86.53 78.03
Euro
Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr
UK Pound
US Dollar
RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
22 AGRIBUSINESS
Livestock Improvement has good half yearFARMER CO-OP LIC says demand for innovations that increase farm efficiency and prosperity have contributed to its strong performance during the six months to November 2013.
Chairman Murray King says the high milk price and relatively stable weather have prompted farmers to spend more on infor-mation management tools to
analyse and fine-tune animal and farm performance.
“Our farmers manage more animals more efficiently than ever before. Our job is to provide them with [the means to] run efficient profitable businesses.”
Technology is developing at an unprecedented rate and farmers are faced with an array of manage-ment technologies, King says.
“New Zealand dairy farm-
ers have some of the highest usage rates of technology in the world and we have embarked on a multi-million dollar rebuild of our databases and IT infrastruc-ture to future-proof our ability to deliver innovative products and services.”
Revenue for the six months to November 2013 was $135.2 million compared to $131.7 million for the same period in 2012.
LIC says due to the database and technology platform rebuild, net profit after tax (profit attrib-utable to shareholders) decreased by 10.25% from $30 million in 2012 to $26.9 million. Biological assets were not revalued.
The co-op says its balance sheet remains strong with total equity of $219.6 million com-pared to $214.6 million in Novem-ber 2012. Scheme
trains jobless for hort workA SCHEME which ‘brings the classroom into the orchard’, is sending trained orchard workers into the industry.
The Eastern Institute of Technology (EIT), Work and Income NZ and local iwi joined John Bostock, owner of JM Bostock Ltd, in training people in orchard work.
The partners set up an EIT level-three, 20-week sus-tainable fruit production course with theory and practi-cal modules. The theory mirrors the orchard cycle to help the students’ learning.
Bostock says the scheme, run at his orchard, ticks the right boxes for growers and creates job prospects for grad-uates.
“The key for us is getting these trainees into full time work rather than just seasonal jobs. We are helping up-skill them, so they can easily apply what they learn to a real job in an orchard.”
Fourteen students completed a course in November 2013 and all got jobs. Among them were Jason Cunning-ham and his two sons who began working for JM Bostock Ltd.
“We have job security now, so it takes the stress away. I used to get low when I knew the seasonal work was coming to an end and I had to go back on the dole. But this course gives me more purpose in life and direction.”
Bill Neilson also got a full-time job with JM Bostock Ltd and says the course has opened doors for him.
“Two years ago I was a dole bludger, doing nothing but sitting on the couch. Now I’m out in the sun picking apples. I look forward to getting up each day. I’m setting a good example to my children by working. It gives them the incentive to get out there and work for a living too.”
EIT horticulture tutor Erin Simpson says having the classroom on an orchard helps give the students hands-on experience. While teaching the theory, Simpson was able to take students from the classroom into the orchard to bring the theory to life.
“Industry buy-in has been a key to this course taking off. It ensures we are providing programmes to meet industry needs. The students start with pruning, pest and disease control, tractor driving, orchard machinery usage, irriga-tion, maintenance and thinning, so it’s sequential through the season and means at the end they have the right prac-tical skills to get a job.
“The timing is ideal because when they finish the course in November there are plenty of jobs out there for them.”
Bostock has been encouraging other growers to back the sustainable fruit production scheme and as a result more growers are providing support.
“If we all get together and each do a little bit we can make a big difference. Unemployment creates social chal-lenges in Hawke’s Bay, so if we are all paddling in the same direction it will help.”
The first-time graduates were recently treated to a ceremony at the Te Aranga marae, Flaxmere, where their achievements were recognised.
Applications are open for the next course starting in March.
Bill Neilson, Mahi Hauparoa, John Bostock and Jason Cunningham working on Downs Orchard, near Flaxmere, in Hawke’s Bay.
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AGRIBUSINESS 23
Turning waste avocados into wealth
MOVE OVER New Zealand milkpow-der, here come the avocados.
A project in Waikato is turning pulp from blemished and non-saleable avo-cados into a high value powder for use in cosmetic, nutraceutical and food prod-ucts. The product is selling in the US, Japan, China and Australia.
Last year Avocado Oil New Zealand launched a world-first 100% pure com-mercial avocado powder product known as Avopure with the help of the Innova-tion Waikato subsidiary Food Waikato, which operates a product development spray dryer in Hamilton.
The executive director of Avocado Oil New Zealand, Brian Richardson, says Avopure has a unique point of dif-ference on compared to overseas com-petitors.
“It is the first premium avocado powder available that contains no added fillers or carriers and contains higher levels of potassium, fibre and energy,” says Richardson.
Innovation Park has now received $28,000 from Bio-Resource Process-ing Alliance (BPA) to develop a way to
scale up commercial production of avo-cado powder.
With the help of BPA’s four research partners -- AgResearch, Callaghan Inno-vation, Plant & Food Research and Scion -- FoodWaikato is able to further improve the drying process toward a commercial outcome.
The BPA is granting $15,000 for research by Massey University scien-tists and $13,000 for modifications to the FoodWaikato plant.
New Zealand Food Innovation Net-work business development manager
Shane Kells says the aim is to increase avocado drying.
“Avocado pulp is extremely fibrous, so the BPA is working with us to find ways to break down the fibre and decrease the thickness of the raw prod-uct. Because the product is so thick, this reduces how quickly we can process it through the drier. The aim is to increase throughput while maintaining the natu-ral green colour of the raw fruit, and pre-serving quality.”
A large part of the value in the BPA’s involvement with the avocado powder
project is the opportunity for Food-Waikato to help other companies later duplicate the process with other waste foods.
“As far as we are aware, worldwide no one has come up with a commer-cially viable means of drying pure fruit or vegetable powders through a spray dryer at a fast enough rate to satisfy pro-jected market demand. If we can crack this challenge, we can help New Zealand growers capture enormous export value from their waste streams,” Kells says.
“FoodWaikato’s purpose is to con-
tribute to the park’s wider aim by sup-porting food innovators. Avocado Oil New Zealand’s story is just one exam-ple of how we’re making that happen,” Kells says.
A workshop was held at Innovation Waikato last week to outline the work of the BPA and the funding opportunities it provides. The avocado project was given as an example.
According to the Ministry of Busi-ness, Innovation and Employment, the BPA seeks to help add $100 million to the New Zealand economy by 2020.
SUDESH KISSUN
THE BIO-RESOURCE Processing Alli-ance (BPA) is a government funded initiative that helps biological-based manufacturing businesses gain value from waste and by-products, while reducing environmental impacts from primary production and manu-facturing.
According to BPA general manager Trevor Stuthridge, the initiative has $2.5 million per year on offer to New Zealand companies
and their research providers over the next five years.
The challenge of how to capture more value from waste in our primary industries is huge, says Stuthridge.
“ For example, nearly half of New Zealand kiwifruit are not of sufficient quality for direct export; 20% of the harvest from trees in New Zealand is left on the ground, and a lot of material from mussel harvesting is by-catch that gets thrown away.”
More value from waste
Food Waikato business manager Dave Shute with a reject avocado prior to pulping.
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
AGRIBUSINESS 25
International food prices down despite dairy
WORLD FOOD prices fell for the first time in three months in January despite the dizzy heights of the dairy market and a recent rally in grains.
The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation’s food price index was down 1.3% last month compared to December and 4.4% below January 2013.
“We’re seeing lower prices due to abundant supplies, but stronger upturn in demand, such as an increase in the pace of imports from Asia, could limit the decline,” says
FAO economist Abdolreza Abbassian.
Sugar, vegetable oils and cereals dropped 5.6%, 3.8% and 1.6% for the month and even meat, which had strengthened over the past few months, fell slightly in January.
“The only notable exception was a rise in dairy prices,” says Michael Griffin, FAO’s dairy and livestock market expert.
“The FAO dairy price index registered a 1.3% increase in January to 267.7 points, largely reflecting strong demand, especially from China, North Africa, the Middle East and the Russian Fed-eration.”
The FAO noted bumper cereal crops last year meant cereals were 23% cheaper in January than a year ago and its latest estimate for world cereal production in 2013 was a record 2,502 million tonnes, up 8.5% from 2012.
The 2013 crop would help replenish global stocks to 573mt, 13.5% up on a year ago, giving a stocks-to-use ratio of over 23.5%, the highest since 2002/03. That compares to an all time low of 18.4%, recorded in 2007/08.
FAO says it also consid-ers 2014 harvest prospects favourable, and pointed to the February market monitor report from the
Agricultural Market Infor-mation System as further evidence of that.
The AMIS report says winter wheat conditions in the Northern Hemi-sphere have been good and Southern Hemisphere maize and soya crops are better than previously anticipated.
Last year’s record cereal production and rising stocks have already resulted in sharply lower prices which have stimu-lated demand and trade. FAO expects 321.4mt to be
traded in 2013/14, 4% more than 2012/3 and a record volume, with consump-tion forecast up 92mt at 2,415mt, mostly due to increased use of coarse grains, maize in particular.
Prices for maize on the benchmark Chicago futures exchange hit a low of US$4.12/bushel in early January for March move-ment, but have since ral-
lied to US$4.43/bu, a three-month high.
Wheat has similarly turned a corner, up from a low of US$5.50/bu in late January for the March 2014 contract, to US$5.85/bu last week.
High export volumes from major trading blocks were a driver in both ral-lies, and in the case of wheat, fears over crop
condition due to cold in the US and Europe added to increases, despite an International Grains Council report raising its forecast for year-end stocks of wheat 9% to 188mt.
Meanwhile closer to home the ASX’s NSW wheat contract for March has firmed 10% since the turn of the year.
ANDREW SWALLOW
[email protected] Despite the dizzying heights of dairy, world food prices fall for the first time in 3 months during Jan-uary.
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
THE HOUNDWant to share your opinion or
gossip with the Hound? Send your emails to:
26 OPINION
EDITORIAL EDNA
How good?THE HOUND reckons Fed’s chief Conor English – who has announced he will step down from his role in July – is not one to hide his light under a bushel. English told Rural News’ sister publication Dairy News that during his time at the helm the Feds had, among other things, regained its credibility: “… there’s no one I ring who doesn’t return my phone calls,” he modestly claimed. This kind of humility has earned the Deputy PM and Finance Minister’s little brother the unflattering moniker of Conor ‘FIGJAM’ (F#@k I’m Good Just Ask Me) English.
Tough job!THEY SAY farming is a tough life and, going by recent figures released by ACC about on-farm accidents, cattle farming is the toughest. According to ACC, cattle are New Zealand’s most dangerous farm animals. Its figures show that in 2013 there were 2262 cattle-related injuries requiring ACC funding. Sheep came in second, inflicting 1612 injuries, while horses ran third with 1285 claims. However, cattle were not the most dangerous farm animal in all areas of the country. In Manawatu, farmers there ‘flocked’ to ACC in 2013, claiming 43 sheep-related injuries in 2013.
High octaneTHIS OLD mutt reckons the muppets who proposed the ill-fated ‘fart tax’ a few years ago may have had health and safety issues in mind, rather than just saving the planet. German news media report that methane gas from 90 flatulent cows exploded in a German farm shed, damaging the roof and injuring one animal. Police said high levels of the gas had built up in the struc-ture in the central German town of Rasdorf, then “a static electric charge caused the gas to explode with flashes of flames”. Apparently, one cow was treated for burns, a police spokesman said.
Other footYOUR OLD mate had a bit of a giggle when hearing the former head of Bios-ecurity New Zealand, Barry O’Neil, raising the alarm over a peach scale-bug find on Italian kiwi-fruit in New Zealand. This has to be the ultimate case of the boot being on the other foot, or the poacher turned game-keeper. O’Neil is now chief executive of Kiwifruit Vine Health, but when in charge of the former MAF department he was invariably defensive about our national biosecurity. It will be interesting to see his reaction if this bug gets a grip.
Double standard?YOUR OLD mate is a little confused over the stance taken by wannabe meat industry and current Fonterra director John Mongahan in relation to putting his name forward as an independent director of the Alliance Group. Monaghan is refusing to put himself through the Alliance’s vetting process for appointing direc-tors, which he has called a “façade”. However, he was only too happy to go through a similar kind of process used by Fonterra to vet its candidates for board elections – which many other Fonterra candi-dates have not been happy about.
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RURALNEWS
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KILLING BOBBY calves with hammer blows to their heads should send shivers down the spine of every Kiwi dairy farmer.
The days of ‘she’ll be right’ are gone, as are the days when ‘what happens on the farm stays on the farm’.
And perceptions held by onlookers are as important as ever. Vast numbers of people now own a camera-cellphone, and social media can spread misinformation at light speed.
Trying to educate the public about farming practices is by-and-large a lost cause because townies, especially in Auckland and Welling-ton, dwell in another universe.
It may be that farmers now must try to think like an imagined Aucklander -- or a Ber-liner -- to try to second-guess their percep-tions of how farming is and how it ought to be.
The citizens of Grey Lynn and Karori need to know that farmers see no great sport in bashing their baby charges with ham-mers, nor, for that matter, having their vets induce calves. We acknowledge the public, with the animal ethicists, want animals killed ‘nicely’. (Sentient beings are to be euthanased humanely, not bashed to death.)
New Zealand agribusiness is vulnerable because it pitches its products to the affluent and educated – the high end of the market. The reward is better prices, the requirement is higher standards.
Farming leaders need to get off the fence and lead from the front, personally showing their farms as examples of best practice in animal welfare. One-time airline owner Sir Reg Ansett once said “the speed of the boss is the speed of the team”. Right!
Dairy farmers need to be one step ahead of the consumer and offer new value propo-sitions that show they are leaders not follow-ers of best practice.
Call to lead in animal welfare
SOMETHING ON YOUR MIND?
post to: Letter to the Editor PO Box 3855, Auckland 1140.
or Email: [email protected]
GOT SOMETHING on your mind about the latest issues affecting our dairy industry? Put your pen to paper or your fingers to your keyboard, and let our readers know what
you think. Contact us by either post or email. Don’t forget to put your name and address.
Note: Letters may be edited.
“He’s off to bale some of that grass going to waste on the berms in Jafaland.”
RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
OPINION 27
Real leadership is not easily followedLEADERSHIP IS becoming increasingly challenging, not the least because as soon as something appears to be going wrong, everybody knows about it.
Conventional and social media instruments have impact and public opinion appears to be formed at least in part by weight of coverage. Also, people appear to be eager to offer comment, whether informed or not, without considering the issues and alternatives.
Being a leader is not easy.
In addition to the traditional attributes, increasing uncertainty and risk are complicating matters. Add ‘crises not of the making of the leaders’ and the complications escalate.
A McKinsey quarterly report on leading in the 21st century suggests that to be able to adapt
a company’s strategy to an external crisis, a good leader must “create a culture of constructive skepticism and surround [her/himself ] with people who bring multiple perspectives and have no fear of challenging the boss”.
This means the management team, but it is also important on the board.
The purpose of a board is to use the diversity of directors’ skills and business networks to maximise long-term sustainable financial returns to
shareholders. Chief executive employment is another key directors’ role, as is the leadership the board provides on the vision, mission, business plans and ethics of the organisation.
We’re having trouble with this in New Zealand.
Mayor Len Brown is under question for undeclared ‘upgrades’. The issue appears to be whether his then-undeclared mistress benefitted. In France the mistress component of the president’s behaviour was considered to be irrelevant as it was his private ‘affair’. The French reaction might have been somewhat
different if business had been involved. All board (or council) members are under scrutiny for transgressions. On an agricultural board, farmers are constantly aware of the potential impacts on their credibility of, for instance, an effluent spill or over-extension financially.
The problem is likely to get worse. Pita Alexander, specialist farm accountant and commentator, has said that all businesses are getting more complicated and increasingly should be focussed on targeting optimal production. What is optimal for the leader, however, might be beyond the capabilities of staff, but it is the leader who is under fire. In a company the board of directors is also implicated when something goes wrong, hence the reaction of Auckland councillors to mayor Brown’s activities.
Had the council not investigated, councillors could have been accused of being complicit, and ratepayers might have questioned their positions and salaries.
Equally, for a company, directors should not say that operational matters are somebody else’s responsibility. They are
liable for finance and health and safety: there is a case of extension of liability to matters which affect the reputation of the company. New Zealand directors of Manuka SA have no doubt been discussing this.
The problem with this approach of ‘liability’ is,
however, that it will deter people from becoming involved.
New Zealand companies, and councils, need people who are knowledgeable, forward thinking and have all the skills and attributes identified in leadership. These people are also likely to be the type that
push the limits, and sometimes go over them.
To enable top people to want to become leaders in governance and management we need to be considering how best to create pathways of excellence. We also need to be challenging the norm.
Changing times
and new goals demand fresh thinking, and should prompt action. All directors should be scrutinising themselves for the value they add to a board, while checking the risks inherent in their own activities. • Jacqueline Rowarth is professor of agribusiness, The University of Waikato.
To enable top people to want to become leaders in governance and management we need to be considering how best to create pathways of excellence.
Auckland Mayor Len Brown’s ‘leadership’ has come under question following his recent form.
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28 OPINION
$1 billion industry doing plenty right“LIES, DAMNED lies and statistics” is a phrase used to describe the persuasive power of numbers. Appar-ently the term was popu-larised by US writer Mark Twain, who attributed the quote to 19th century Brit-ish Prime Minister Benja-min Disraeli.
This came to mind when we recently released the latest figures about the contribution of rural contracting to New Zealand’s economy. (See infographic).
In the past, the question had often been asked of Rural Contractors New Zealand (RCNZ) what contribution our industry made to the national economy. And until a few years ago we could not give a definitive answer.
However in 2010 RCNZ engaged research firm Infometrics to examine the nature of economic activity in rural contracting – including value-added and employment – and the industry’s
contribution to the agri-cultural sector and New Zealand’s economy over-all.
Infometrics updated this information in late 2013 and its latest study reveals that New Zea-land’s rural contracting industry added almost a billion dollars to the country’s economy last
year. In fact, this update shows that rural contracting contributed $947 mil-lion to New Zealand’s GDP in 2013.
What this revised research clearly shows (see attached infographic) is that the rural contracting industry is not only a major contributor to our all-important agri-sector, but is also a strong and vital part of New Zealand’s overall economy.
This contribution came from 5255 registered rural contracting businesses. The Infometrics research also reveals how the industry grew rapidly in eco-
nomic output between 2000 and 2008 – expanding by 4.1% a year compared with the national economy growth of only 2.7% during the same period.
It also shows the rural contracting sector’s economic output peaked in 2008, but then eased back in recent years due to cautious spending in the agricultural sector in the aftermath of the GFC. However the good news for contractors is that Infometrics expects demand for rural contract-ing to expand towards its previous peak as farmer confidence, buoyed by a sustained period of elevated commodity prices, returns in the coming years.
Another key finding of this research is that nearly 18,000 people are employed by rural contrac-tors: an average of 17,984 people were employed in rural contracting until March 2013. The average number of employees per business unit was 3.4 – up from 2.5 in 2000.
This clearly shows the growing
importance and influence of rural contracting in the agricultural sector and the need for our politicians and policymakers to better understand the industry and its needs.
The numbers in this Infometrics research show that Twain’s comments
about sta-tistics being a lie are not always correct, and that the rural contracting sector is well and truly contributing – and will continue to contribute – to New Zealand’s ‘rock-star’ economy.
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
OPINION 29SORRY; NO CONSPIRACY ON TB NUMBERSNOT FOR the first time, Ron Eddy (Too much TB spin, Rural News 21
January) seeks to insin-uate the existence of a conspiracy. At the risk of
disappointing him, there is none.
The number of TB-infected herds is updated at the end of each month when some are cleared of infection, having had at least two negative TB tests. Unfortunately, the complex nature of the disease means that some of the 70,000 registered herds may also test posi-tive during this time. This
explains why infected herd numbers fluctuate. However, infected cattle and deer herd numbers have fallen by some 96% since their peak in 1994.
The previous national pest management strategy focused solely on reducing infected herd numbers. Its target was reached in late 2011 – 18 months ahead of schedule. The current national pest
management plan has broader aims to eradi-cate TB from wild animals across some 2.5 million ha by 2026. Removing TB from wildlife remains the key to eliminating the disease from cattle and deer herds.
NAIT is halfway through its three-year transition. It has been one of the biggest changes in the farming sector in decades. Farmers
have stepped up and we are encouraging them to register tagged animals and record and confirm animal movements in the NAIT system.
NAIT data has already been instrumental in helping us trace animals rapidly during TB-infected herd investigations and our focus is on making the system as efficient, effec-tive and user-friendly as
possible.ASD forms have under-
gone some minor revi-sions. It is important they are completed correctly. We also provide a free 0800 contact centre service to assist farmers with queries about the NAIT and TBfree New Zealand programmes.John DealOSPRI New ZealandWellington
ag twitsRural News’ irreverent and hypothetical look at what’s happening in the farming world
Top Bleats view all
cenglishfedfarmers: Sadly, farming in NZ will never be the same after I leave my posi-tion at Feds in July. No doubt the pope, the prime minister and the president are all in mourning. #mybrilliantcareer
cenglishfedfarmers@popefrancis: Your Holiness, I’m somewhat surprised you didn’t pick up the phone when I called you. Just wanted to let you know I’m stepping down from my role in July and am available for any Holy See diplomatic roles. #conorforpope
cenglishfedfarmers@ johnkeypm: John, just rang your office to let you know I’m retir-ing and available to save the country after July 23. I was rather astonished to be told by the girl who answered the phone that you were too busy to take my call. #billsmybrother
cenglishfedfarmers@obamapotus: Mr President, amazed to learn you don’t take random calls even from me so left a message with your switchboard operator about my availability, post July, to solve the Middle East crisis. #wrongpresident
cenglisfedfarmers@bwillsfedfarmers: Bruce, they say grief affects different people differently. But your and the board’s reaction to my resignation of jumping up and down, singing halleluiah and laughing hysterically while high-fiving each other was certainly dif-ferent #iknowyouaremissingmealready
cenglish@jwilsonfonterra: John, I’m step-ping down from Feds in July. I tried ringing you earlier about possible roles at Fonterra, but you did not answer. Have you changed your number? #nodialtone
cenglishfedfarmers@johnmcarthymie: John, obviously MIE is after a man of action; a man who gets things done and one who will shake up the red meat sector – so I’m astounded you’ve not returned my phone call yet. #redmeatsaviour
cenglishfedfarmers@mikepetersen: Mike, like you I am stepping down from my all-important role in NZ farming. I rang you earlier to give you some sage advice on my view of international trade, but was amazed when you did not take my call. #ringme
cenglishfedfarmer@davidjesuscunliffe: David, I’m leaving Feds and I rang earlier to compare notes on how we both have an innate ability to save the world. I was startled you did not answer. Is your phone on silent? #coveringallbases
cenglishfedfarmers@thatguynathan: Nathan, gave you a courtesy call to tell you I may be standing at the next election and obviously will be the next primary industries minister. I was flabbergasted when your PA refused to put me through and insisted I phone the Mental Health Foundation instead. #moveoverbuddy
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MANAGEMENT/OPINION 31
Grass and urine claims challengedWITH REGARDS to the big promo for AberHSG ryegrass (Rural News, Feb-ruary 4), I know it is that time of the year when all kinds of claims are made about the dozens of pas-ture seed cultivars on offer. I tried AberHSG in 2005 shortly after it became available and while the cows find it pal-atable enough, like most
farmers we find it well behind the more modern NZ ryegrasses for winter/spring production and substantially behind a well managed perennial tetra-ploid for palatability. How-ever, it is the claims made by Dr Alison with regard to AberHSG being envi-ronmentally friendly that cannot go unchallenged.
It is true, in theory, that a higher carbohydrate (starch/sugar) forage pro-
vides the energy to give better utilisation of high levels of protein in pasture and therefore less wasted in urine. The trouble is, AberHSG has proven to be poor in this area, as shown by research from 2006-08 by Pacheco et al of the Food, Metabolism and Microbiology, Forage improvement, Applied Biotechnologies Group, Agresearch Grasslands and Institute of Veterini-
ary, Animal and Biomed-ical Sciences at Massey University . Their report, “Seasonal and Dietary effects on the concentra-tion of urinary N from grazing dairy cows” reports how three ryegrass cultivars: AberHSG, old tetraploid Italian Moata, and the diploid peren-nial Impact compared. To summarise, AberHSG gave a urine N average of 6.4g/L in autumn compared
to Impact at 5.5g/L and Moata at 4.5g/L. In spring, AberHSG gave a urine N
average of 5.1g/L, Impact 4.9g/L, Moata 2.9g/L. The significantly lower N con-
centration from Moata will be partly due to the
NORM ATKINS
Germinal seeds respondsGERMINAL SEEDS’ general man-ager, David Kerr, challenges Atkins’ assertion that ‘most farmers find it [Aber High Suger Grass] well behind the more modern NZ ryegrasses for winter and spring’.
“I can only presume that he has surveyed ‘most farmers’ in order to make such a claim,” Kerr told Rural News.
“Otherwise, it’s simply an opin-ion based on his own experience near Dannevirke.”
Germinal has many positive farmer responses about the grasses, a few of which the February 4 Rural News supplement relayed.
In terms of trials, Kerr says at Pou-kawa, about 80km north of Atkin’s farm, On-Farm Research had 26 perennial ryegrasses in unmarked plots sown eight years ago. AberDart was first equal for persistence among diploid perennial AR1 ryegrasses, which aligns with a DairyNZ trial near Ruakura where AberDart produced
more drymatter in year three than the 11 other ‘modern NZ ryegrasses’, including four AR37 varieties.
On the issue of water soluble car-bohydrate (WSC), AberDart in the Poukawa trial had about 20% more WSC than perennial ryegrasses with which it was compared, a result mir-rored at AgResearch Grasslands, 76km southwest of Atkins’ farm, where WSC content in AberAvon and AberMagic was overall 13% higher than in ryegrasses Impact and Bron-syn.
Meanwhile the D Pacheco et al paper which Atkins refers to was about concentration of N in dairy cow urine and the dilution effect when cows eat ‘wetter’ tetraploid grass. It did not mention the counter-balanc-ing effect of more N being absorbed in extra meat and milk from ruminants eating a grass with higher sugar con-tent, says Kerr. UK trials have shown that effect to contribute to a 24% reduction of N waste when cows graze
AberHSG.The paper also references earlier
work by co-author and Grasslands colleague Gerald Cosgrove whose study of the WSC levels in the three ryegrasses found AberDart to have higher levels than Impact in spring 2004 and 2005 and autumn 2006 and 2007. Moata had a higher WSC con-tent but it’s a tetraploid and didn’t last to the trial’s third year.
Kerr says former AgResearch regional director Dr Jock Allison stands by his view that high sugar grasses should be part of New Zea-land’s pro-active strategies for reduc-ing greenhouse gas emissions and nutrient flows into waterways.
“Dr Allison says it is clear that any ryegrass cultivar with higher levels of sugar will result in higher levels of stock performance, higher produc-tion, higher utilisation of bacterial protein (derived from forage pro-tein) and therefore urinary N levels will be lower.”
The maths behind the 800-1000kgN/ha urine patch myth doesn’t stack up, says farmer Norm Atkins. (See page 34)
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
32 MANAGEMENT
Advanced weaning
IF YOU haven’t weaned your beef calves by the end of this month you could be compromising calf and overall farm performance,
the experience of a leading Hawkes Bay station shows.
Rissington Sta-tion’s advanced wean-ing approach, honed over
Earlier this month Hawkes Bay-based Focus Genetics held a field day at Rissington Station looking at, among other things, beef calf weaning dates. Vivienne Haldane reports.
the past five years, is to wean calves at 150 days old instead of the traditional March or April date.
A minimum live-weight threshold of 160kg is applied but in practice calves are averaging 230kg at 150 days.
“We were doing well with our cows and calves until 2-3 weeks into Janu-ary, when we found our calves’ weight gain was being compromised as we pushed the cows harder to clean up spring/summer surplus feed for our high performing sheep system,” recalls Rissington’s Ben Absolom.
“After some discus-sions with David Ginter from Animal Logic Group we came to the conclusion that calves could actually do better without mum at that point.”
A bit of a “suck and see approach” initially gave them the confidence to build earlier weaning with some supplementary feed-ing into their system as routine.
“Changing weaning method helped planning through to autumn and benefits have flowed on to the rest of our system too. Suddenly we could make crucial decisions through January around prioritisa-tion of other stock classes, because we knew we were weaning cows and calves
in the last week of January or first week of February.
“We find our cows are back to work, mobbed up and we start grooming our country for mating ewes and ewe hoggets.”
The earlier weaning allows a wedge of feed to be built up.
“The savings are any-where from 300-600kg of dry matter per cow depending on when you traditionally would wean. When you dial in the fact you know your cattle and sheep stocking rate 12 months in advance, you can tinker with that a bit.”
Meanwhile the extra cost works out at about $25/calf, whether it’s a full grain advanced weaning programme or nuts fed for 21 days post weaning.
The feed saved through the cow not lactating nor-mally recoups that calf feeding cost “and more,” says Absolom.
“However, last year because of the drought, we didn’t,” he admits.
In the first couple of seasons, to see how it worked, they monitored two mobs: one advanced weaned; one traditionally.
The mob weaned tra-ditionally was about 5kg ahead of the advanced weaned mob by the tra-ditional weaning date but then the traditional mob went through their usual
Extra grass grown and earlier finishing more than pay for three weeks’ feeding at weaning, Rissington Station has found.
Family business: Daniel and Ben Absolom.
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MANAGEMENT 33
approach boosts beef returnsdip such that the advanced weaned mob pulled ahead.
“There was about a 30-day difference between male calves of a kill weight at the other end: the advanced weaned ones kept going on their tra-jectory, while the other ones… dropped off for that 3 weeks, which was basi-cally the 30kg difference at the other end.”
Absolom says the key to success with the advanced
weaning approach is to not cut corners, “things such as clean water and adequate trough space. If you do, you’ll be disap-pointed.”
Jack Tarrant, of Animal Logic, says the reason earlier weaned calves do better is because it promotes rumen development* whereas milk at 5-6 months is actually detrimental.
Rissington is looking
to capitalise on the earlier rumen development with a new generation of tall fescue grass called Tower. In 2013 they sowed a 10ha block to see how it would work.
“We have targets of 500kgs at 12 months of age for yearling bulls for Focus Genetics, so our critical times are in autumn and early spring. That’s when we find our ryegrasses are not doing it for us – they will in winter, but not spring,” says Absolom.
“We wanted a deep rooted plant, so we sowed the tall fescue in the middle of the drought, late February 2013 and we’ve been rapt at how it’s come through.”
Absolum notes their stock manager, Fanie Erumus, commented they would “need a whole lot more cattle on it to con-trol it come spring,” it established so well.
They’ve had no autumn or spring bloating issues and from a weight gain
Another development discussed at the Focus Genetics’ field day was Silver Fern Farms’ eating quality (EQ) system for grading, which gives farmers specific information on carcass results.
Absolom says the EQ information will be a powerful tool for their breeding and meat production enterprises.
“To get direct feedback on each indi-vidual carcass and its eating quality is really exciting.”
Detailed EQ reports that integrate into the FarmIQ system are being developed and under SFF’s Back-
bone Programme a premium for stock meeting EQ Master Grade standards will be available.
Reflecting on the field day, Focus Genetics’ cattle programme manager, Daniel Absolom, said it was a great success, tying genetics, farm manage-ment and eating quality together rather than looking at one area in isolation.
“If we all continue to lift the bar in all three areas this will deliver better returns for our customers.”
Farmers came from as far afield as Wairarapa, Wairoa and Taupo to attend, he noted.
Eating quality feedback welcome
FARM FACTS - RISSINGTON STATION.❱❱ 910ha effective carrying 12,000
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❱❱ Mostly easy to medium country, some steep hill.
❱❱ 65% cattle: Angus, Simmental and Stabilizer;
❱❱ 35% sheep, including Primera ram breeding flock and Highlander commercial ewes.
❱❱ 200 recorded bulls and 300 Primera rams sold annually through Focus Genetics.
perspective, stock on the Fescue are doing better than off any of the ryegrass species they’ve had.
“Part of that I put down to the diet balance,” says
Absolom.“Tall fescue has a stable
protein level through a 12-month period, with-out the diet fluctuations of rye. The fescue ranges
from a 12-18% protein level whereas traditional rye-grasses range from 8-35%.
“With our high propor-tion [of ] cattle system it should go really well.”
In due course they plan to put a third of the farm down to tall fescue.
– More from Tarrant on rumen development in Animal Health, pXX.
Big boys: bulls produced for Focus Genetics have to be 500kg by 12 months.
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
34 MANAGEMENT
urine volumes being greater due to the large-celled tetraploid being “wetter”. But also because AberHSG is only mar-ginally better for sugar, if at all. The autumn level of soluble sugars and starch (SSS) aver-ages 13.7g/100gDM for AberHSG compared
to 14.1g for Moata and 12.5g for Impact. In spring AberHSG was 23g/100gDM compared to Moata’s 21.4g/100gDM and Impact’s 21.1g/100g.
I am all for destroying myths, whether created by big budget advertis-ing or scientists with an axe to grind. So let’s anal-yse the DairyNZ perpetu-
ated myth that a dairy cow applies 800-1000kgN/ha in a urine patch, therefore causing massive leach-ing. There are three parts to the maths here: 1) the urine concentration; 2) the volume of urine and total amount of N; 3) the area the urine is spread over, which varies with soil moisture content.
A worst case scenario of a strong concentration urine of 6.5gN/L depos-ited in a big urination of 3L (cow urinations range roughly 0.6-3.6L) gives total of 20gN, mainly as urea, over a urine patch of say 0.5m2. Given a hectare is 10,000m2 that’s equiva-lent to 400kgN/ha.In a four-year study at Lin-
coln University starting May 2003 by Prof K. Cam-eron et al, “Spatial Cov-erage of Dairy cattle urine patches in an intensively grazed pasture system”, urine patches were found to be 0.2 to 1.1m2 and to average 0.37m2 for 2L. They also state a growing ryegrass pasture can use 300 to 700kgN/Ha.
High sugar grass not the answerTo get 1000kgN/Ha you
would need a 2L urination spread over 0.2m2 with a concentration of 10gN/L. The research shows this would be an extremely unusual urination yet, on the basis of this nonsense, we are told we have to get cows off paddocks and into sheds and concrete feedlots as in America and Europe’s energy intensive systems. Meanwhile we’re told by Jan Wright, Commisioner for the Environment, that as long as we convert more land to dairy the waterways will continue to deteriorate because the urinating cow is the problem. A typical Tararua stream in an area with dairy cows stocked at about 2.8cows/ha has a nitrate loading up to 0.6g/
m2. I’ve seen data that the Ashburton and Rangitata rivers in Canterbury at their bottom ends have a loading of 6g/m2. That’s unacceptable, but obviously the cows down there are not stacked on 10 to the hectare. We need to look for the reason in the farm systems. Let’s look for higher carbohydrate diets for the cow so she does not waste so much potential milk and meat protein through her urine putting her at risk of polluting the environment. Unfortunately, AberHSG is clearly not going to be the answer.• Norm Atkins is a south-ern Hawkes Bay dairy and drystock farmer milking 350 cows near Ormondville.
FROM PAGE 31
Focus on ewes now, not lambs
ANDREW SWALLOW
A FARM IQ study on a Canterbury high country sta-tion suggests putting condition on ewes provides twice the return on feed consumed than finishing lambs.
Merino ewes on Glenaan Station, Rakaia Gorge, were condition scored at weaning, mating and shearing then, thanks to EID tags, compared for performance parameters such as conception, lamb survival and fleece production.
It was found condition score explained 99% of the variation in scanning result (ie conception) with every 0.5 increase in condition score from 2.0 to 4.5 increasing scanning percentage by 10.
While the results are from only one year’s data and the work is being repeated for a second year to make sure of the effect. FARM IQ calculates the return on lifting ewe condition was 35-40c/kgDM, compared to an estimated 18-20c/kgDM from fin-ishing lambs.
Further results will be presented at a field day at Glenaan, March 6, one of a series of FarmIQ field days nationwide this month and next month, as listed on www.farmiq.co.nz
FarmIQ is a seven-year PGP-funded programme established August 2010 with the aim of creating a consumer driven value chain for red meat. The part-ners are MPI, Silver Fern Farms, Landcorp, and Tru-Test. It includes projects on governance, market, genetics, processing, and farm productivity, with EID technology a key tool to track performance and product. Over 200 farms are involved with 15 profiled on the website, including those hosting field days.
Check out the latest market data atwww.ruralnewsgroup.co.nz/markets
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
MANAGEMENT 35
More summer milk with chicory
DURING LAST year’s drought, when conven-tional pasture was parched and brown across Waikato, paddocks of chicory stood out like oases.
The chicory, with its tap root, could access soil moisture from depth pro-ducing high yields regard-less while ryegrass, with its shallow root system, struggled.
The drought, and some prolonged periods with-out rain this summer, have prompted more farm-ers to turn to the crop as a summer break-feed to boost cow nutrition.
Jack and Antoinette Steegh, Tirau, are among them. They milk 260 cows on 150ha and last week hosted a Smaller Milk and Supply Herd (SMASH) field day on the farm, attracting about 70 farm-ers. Last year they planted sorghum but the results were poor, so, three months ago they switched to chicory.
Steegh told the SMASH field day he was very happy with the results so
far and he’ll be planting a further 4ha.
His cows are on 28-day rotation and spend 10 of those days munching chic-ory. He says the cows love it and milk protein pro-duction is up when they’re on it.
Chicory has high tol-erance to insect pests but Steegh has used slug baits in one paddock after 10 slugs were found under a sack placed in the crop.
He also grows maize, and the combination of crops works well.
“They complement each other. Chicory is a summer feed and maize is fed to our cows during autumn,” he told Rural News.
“As the chicory is dying off, the maize comes aboard so it works really well.”
DairyNZ says if chic-ory is to make up a third of the cow’s diet, sow 5-6ha per 100 cows. It also says chicory is best as a re-growth special purpose summer crop sown with clover. In northern regions it warns not to expect more than two productive years from the crop, and
to under-sow grass in the first autumn.
DairyNZ’s research shows if cows are fed 20 to 40% of their diet as chic-ory, there’s a 17% lift in milksolids production.
Agricom northern North Island sales man-ager Ben Trotter, who spoke at the SMASH field day, says what chicory does for the cow is allow it to produce more microbial protein.
He believes the crop works best as a 6-month summer crop but when the firm was trying to increase uptake of the crop in Waikato it had mostly been grown as an 18-month crop.
“I’m not saying that it can’t be done with the right cultivars but I strongly encourage that if you are taking it through 18 months the crop must be carefully managed through winter. It should not be grazed when soils are wet,” he stresses.
Even if soil damage is avoided, typically yields are slightly lower in the second year, he adds.
SUDESH KISSUN
CHICORY SEEDS are small and require shallow sowing, either direct or into a culti-vated seedbed, but as Agricom’s Ben Trotter told farmers at the SMASH field day, if you’re direct drilling, you “must tick all the boxes”.
“Your reliance on [chemical] weed control is much higher because you don’t get to hide anything by cultivating after a single spray…. Also, there’s the problem of slugs. When you cultivate there’s no trash sitting on the surface; when you are direct drilling there’s a lot of trash and by default you must use slug bait.”
Cultivation also unlocks a lot of nutrients which helps chicory’s growth. Direct drilling doesn’t, so more fertiliser will be needed to get the crop going.
Establishment – direct or cultivated
Ben Trotter
Chicory planted on Jack Steegh’s (inset) farm in Tirau.
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
36 ANIMAL HEALTH
NZVA extends Lepto programme to sheep, beef, deerANDREW SWALLOW
THE NEW Zealand Veteri-nary Association is extend-ing its leptosure disease control programme to include sheep, beef cattle and deer.
The extended scheme, to be called Leptosure+, is a natural progression
from the dairy programme which was launched in 2007, says NZVA veteri-nary advisor Roger March-ant.
“We would not be doing our job properly if we didn’t expand it from dairy,” he told Rural News.
The dairy version was recently revised with a key
change being to start the vaccination programme with calves at 10-12 weeks after planned start of calv-ing, as opposed to the tra-ditional 6-month-old start (Dairy News, February 11).
It follows an NZVA-contracted review of the disease by Massey Uni-versity which found some herd replacements are infected prior to vaccina-tion and continue to shed the bacteria long after vac-cination, putting people working with the animals at risk.
“We know that delayed vaccination is a risk because if an animal is exposed to the disease prior to vaccination, vacci-nation won’t eliminate the disease,” notes Marchant.
“And the longer we delay vaccination, the more chance the animal will be exposed to the bac-teria.”
While most dairy herds are vaccinated, a pilot study suggests many will harbour a few of these cows that became infected before vaccination and consequently persistently shed the disease. That pos-sibly explains a persis-tent residue of about 100 human cases/year since the late 1990s, after the toll had tumbled during the 1980s following the introduction of vaccines in the 1970s.
Marchant says a much larger study is planned to examine the risk such ani-mals pose to farmers, farm
staff, vets, and anyone else working with the stock.
“There’s no question about the efficacy of the vaccine; what we’re look-ing at is the efficacy of the vaccination programme.”
Given the lack of vac-cination outside the dairy industry, young stock grazed on non-dairy farms may well be exposed to infection and if they haven’t had their sensi-tiser and booster vaccina-tion, may contract it.
“On a good percentage of sheep and beef farms there’s evidence the ani-mals have been exposed to leptospirosis at some stage,” notes Marchant.
Massey Universi-ty’s Professor of veteri-nary epidemiology and infectious diseases, Cord Heuer, has collated the figures. Depending on the season and year, anti-body tests show 60-90% of flocks have been exposed to leptospirosis, but that range is based on a sample of just 20 adult sheep per farm.
“If we tested whole flocks we’d probably find they’d all been exposed to some extent,” Heuer told Rural News.
“The bottom line is that there’s a very high rate of exposure in our drystock.”
Tests on sheep, beef and deer farmers them-selves found about 6% had been exposed to the dis-ease.
The most widespread
Cord Heuer
Practical challenge: ideally beef calves should get their first leptospirosis jab at 10-18 weeks, with a booster 4-6 weeks.
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
ANIMAL HEALTH 37
NZVA extends Lepto programme to sheep, beef, deer
IN A RECENT Vetscript article, Marchant wrote that the earliest time to give lambs or calves on commercial sheep and beef farms a first “sensitiser” leptospirosis vaccination is seven weeks of age, which in practice will likely mean 10 weeks after start of lambing or calving so all the mob are at least that old.
A booster 4-6 weeks later should follow, and annual boosters
thereafter.The latest that first vaccina-
tion should be given is 18 weeks after start of lambing or calving, so sensitiser and booster can be administered before the oldest lambs or calves reach six months, the age by which natural chal-lenge from the disease typically occurs.
Details of the Leptosure+ programme are still to be
announced, but whatever the advice, Marchant told Rural News it will have to be practical to fit in with commercial farming routines.
“For beef farmers that may well mean vaccinating at marking. Essentially they should follow the same protocol as dairy, vacci-nating at 10-12 weeks followed by a booster 4-6 weeks later. But on some properties that’s going to be difficult to do.”
Current best practice
strain of the disease, L.Hardjo, is more or less benign in cattle and sheep so it’s quite possible no ill-effect will be seen in live-stock. However, if people working with the stock contract L.Hardjo, con-sequences can be severe, even fatal (Rural News, Feb 4).
Hence, Heuer says, the main reason for vac-
cination is protection of people working with stock.
“Overall there was very little effect on produc-tivity from the disease in sheep and beef. We did find an effect in deer, in both reproduction and growth rate, which was sufficient to get a good return on vaccination, but we couldn’t find that on sheep and beef farms.”
Besides the human pro-tection element of a vac-cination programme on drystock farms, Heuer says it could be a selling point for farms looking to contract rear dairy grazers: an effective vaccination programme would mean reduced exposure risk for the dairy farmer’s young-stock.
Some sheep and beef
stud flocks are already vac-cinating against Lepto-spirosis but NZVA would like to see wider uptake with appropriate veteri-nary advice to ensure vac-cination programmes are effective.
Increasing farm size and more corporate farm-ing also means there’s greater demand for a qual-ity assurance programme.
Antibody tests show most sheep and beef farms have had leptospirosis at some point.
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
38 ANIMAL HEALTH
The Rural News article published page 29, Janu-ary 21, states: John Roche, Dairy NZ’s principal scien-tist, animal science, rub-bishes suggestions high MU is associated with poor reproduction. “Let me be very clear, there is no evi-dence that a high MU (milk
urea) is in anyway detri-mental to cow production, health or reproduction.”
Would John Roche elab-orate on his statement that excessive MU (milk urea) does not impede New Zea-land dairy cow reproduc-tion? I would appreciate it if he would comment on the following facts. For example, could he explain
what he thinks caused the decrease in fertility dis-cussed in the University of Arizona study, “Effects of Nutrient Metabolism and Excess Protein Catabo-lism on Dairy Cow Fertil-ity”, by M.L. Rhoads, T.R. Bilby, R.P. Rhoads and L.H. Baumgard? In summary, they found:
• The metabolism of
excess dietary protein results in high plasma urea nitrogen (PUN)
concentrations;• High PUN concentra-
tions (and ammonia to a lesser extent) are associ-ated with decreased
fertility in lactating dairy cows;
• High PUN concentra-tions probably affect fertil-
ity via direct toxic effects on the oocyte
and embryo, alterations in the uterine environment and decreased progester-one secretion;
• The effects on fertility may be further exacerbated by negative energy balance and heat
stress.Fact: excess crude pro-
Conflicting facts on milk urea
tein influences both blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and MUN. Noelia Silva-del-Rio, of Davis Universtity, California’s Veterinary Medicine and Teach-ing Research Centre (VMTRC) also says: “Blood urea is freely dif-fusible to milk, and there-fore, MUN reflects the urea concentration in blood”. This seems to sug-gest that excessive urea N is carried equally in the blood and in the milk so the blood supplying the cow’s uterus would be car-rying excessive urea N. The question is does that impede the function of the uterus in terms of ova fer-tilisation?
Fact: excessive cow PUN influences uterus pH. This is stated in a paper headed “Relationships of Dietary Protein and Fertil-ity” by W. Ronald Butler of Cornell University. Uter-ine pH normally increases from about 6.8 at oestrus up to 7.1 on d 7 of the oes-trous cycle (luteal phase), but this increase failed to occur in both heifers and lactating cows fed excess RDP or RUP (high PUN).
Fact: New Zealand dairy cows are exposed to excessive BUN and MUN levels. Dairy NZ’s senior scientist Dr Jane Kay, in a media statement on milk urea last Decem-ber acknowledged high MUN, and therefore PUN, in dairy cows fed on NZ pasture based systems. In New Zealand pasture-based systems, MU levels are naturally much higher than in systems where
cows are fed a total mixed ration, it stated.
Fact: Dairy cow con-ception rates have been dropping despite hor-mone treatment interven-tion. In a report by Dairy NZ predecessor Dexcel, Chris Burke and Chris-tine Fowler noted: “Survey data indicates that rou-tinely available concep-tion rates of 65% that were available in the 1970s have eroded to 55% or less with the modern cow”.
Fact: Urea fertiliser N use increased by 162% between 1996 and 2002 (Parliamentary Commis-sioner for the Environ-ment, Farming trends, chapter 3.
Fact: Urea fertiliser N increases grass crude pro-tein content. In a South Island Dairy Event paper Kolver and Muller (1998) calculate the energy cost of excreting surplus pro-tein in the form of urea as 0.1kgMS. For a high pro-ducing dairy cow more than 25 % protein is not beneficial. Pasture with more than 30 % pro-tein (when pasture is the only feed) can also cause reduced fertility. In these cases, adding a carbohy-drate-source to the diet, eg maize- or cereal-silage to the diet can be benefi-cial. Another option is to not apply high amounts of N-fertiliser (more than 50 kg N) in one hit, but apply smaller quantities dis-tributed over the growing season, they say.• Steve Clark is an ex-farmer from Wainui, Eastern Bay of Plenty.
STEVE CLARK
High protien pasture: does it reduce fertility?
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
ANIMAL HEALTH 39Heifer calves stimulate more milk from damsTHE SEX of the fetus can affect the amount of milk a cow produces, American researchers have found.
A study of 2.4 million lactations by nearly 1.5 million dairy cows in the US found cows that ges-tated back-to-back daugh-ters produce as much as 450kg more liquid milk (ie by volume, not milksolids) than those that give birth to sons over the first two lactations.
Researchers Katie Hinde of Harvard Univer-sity and Barry Bradford of Kansas State University calculate the results mean if dairy farmers were to use sexed semen to manipu-late conception of daugh-ters for first pregnancies, they could produce as much as US$200 million more milk annually.
“This is something, I think, that would be very appealing, especially to
organic dairy farmers, because this is a method for increasing milk pro-duction that would be allowable under organic standards,” says Hinde, an assistant professor of human evolutionary biol-ogy.
In previous studies it’s been unclear whether dif-ferences in milk produc-tion depending on sex of calf were due to some behavioral interaction post-natally or if there was something going on pre-natally.
“We’ve now shown that this is established during pregnancy, although nurs-ing patterns after birth are likely to also be impor-tant,” says Hinde.
The research also found sex of fetus can influence milk production in an already established lacta-tion and subsequent lac-tations.
Cows that conceived back-to-back bulls pro-
duced significantly less milk. Those that first pro-duced a bull, then a heifer produced slightly more, while those that conceived a heifer then a bull pro-duced nearly as much as back-to-back heifer preg-nancies.
The researchers believe there are two possible answers for the differ-ences in milk production. It could be an evolutionary adaptation to help female calves develop earlier, thus increasing their reproduc-tive potential, or a result of shared physiology between
mother and daughter.“Through the pla-
centa and shared circula-tion exchange, the fetus has the ability to affect the mother,” Hinde says. “We see this in humans with conditions like gestational diabetes. The oestro-gens produced by the fetal daughter are the same hor-mones that, in the mother, are priming the mam-mary gland’s development during pregnancy, so it could be that daughters are an added hormonal signal that results in an increase in milk synthesis.”
The 1.5% increase in production the US researchers found is definitely worth investigating, says LIC general manager of research and develop-ment, Richard Spelman.
“We intend to go over our data set and see if the effect is seen here,” he told Rural News having read the PlosOne paper which relayed the US research.
“But we wouldn’t expect to see the same absolute difference as their production levels (per cow) are a lot higher.”
Having offered sexed semen as a frozen product for the past few years
but restricted fresh sexed product to heifer breeding work with Fonterra for its farms in China, LIC will be making the fresh product more widely available next year.
“It will certainly be available throughout the country but the logistics of whether we will be able to get it to every dairy farm will depend on the numbers they want and where they are.”
Conception rates with sexed frozen semen are 15-20% below normal fresh product, hence LIC hasn’t “pushed it too hard”, says Spelman, but conception from
insemination with fresh sexed semen is only 3-5% behind normal fresh product.
“So it’s a vastly different, superior product to frozen.”
The premium for fresh sexed semen will be about $40/straw, so based on a 1.5% increase in produc-tion for a cow having a heifer calf that return alone wouldn’t justify it.
“The obvious use is where people want to grow their herd and need more replacements. Also where people have high genetic merit herds and sell heifers as another income stream.” – Andrew Swallow
LIC to investigate
ALAN HARMAN
Bull or heifer? If it’s the latter, the cow will milk better, US research shows.
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
40 ANIMAL HEALTH
PAYING MORE attention to rumen development in beef calves can boost pro-ductivity substantially, a field day in the Hawkes Bay earlier this month heard.
“Setting up the rumen in an animal is the cheap-est influence you can have
on feed efficiency,” Jack Tarrant of local ruminant nutrition business Animal Logic told the field day hosted by Focus Genetics on Rissington Station.
“The feed wedge and other things pay for them-selves, but the fact that you have an animal with a rumen environment that is capable of being 25-30%
more efficient for the life-time of that animal is a really big thing.”
The rumen is part of a ruminant’s four-cham-bered stomach. It’s some-times referred to as the animal’s ‘fermentation vat’ but when a calf is born, it’s only the size of a walnut, explains Tarrant.
Yet later in life, 80%
of the animal’s protein and energy will be derived from the by-products of fermentation in the rumen and the better developed the rumen is, the more efficient the animal will be.
During a calf ’s first few months the rumen starts to develop as it starts to try feeds other than milk.
Up to about six months old management of the calf can influence that development, but after that the window of oppor-tunity closes.
Tarrant says research shows milk suppresses rumen development and that early weaning, within reason, is beneficial.
“If you’ve still got
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Better rumen a beef opportunity
calves on cows at five-and-a-half months, you are actually limiting the devel-opment of the rumen,” he points out.
“Weaning time is the best opportunity to fire up the rumen because you can influence the size, wall thickness, vascular development, surface area and how active it is for its whole life.”
A diet higher in starch rather than protein is ben-eficial.
“How well you wean calves… is going to dictate what that animal will do for the rest of its life. If it’s done poorly, you set the ceiling for how effectively that animal will convert feed into production for [ever].”
The catch is high starch feeds can be dangerous to calf health if introduced suddenly or in excess. Tar-rant says Animal Logic’s products, such as Weaner-
max Pellet and ReplenX, allow safe feeding of starch and help maximise rumen development.
But do such feeds stack up financially?
“What we’ve found in New Zealand and espe-cially on the dry east coast, is we’ve been able to take calves off the cows 2-3 months earlier than usual. It means farmers can go back to using their cow as a cow again.
“On properties with high sheep stocking rates they can get those cows in to tidy up pasture. If you still have calves on cows, then there is a cost to doing that in terms of calf growth rate. You can also prioritise feeding your calves on some of your better pasture.”
In Australia, Tarrant says they’ve increased stocking rates across whole farms “just using this one protocol”.
Animal Logic’s Jack Tarrant at the Focus Genetics’ field day.
Ireland’s 1-2-3 calf rearing reminder
HAVING HEALTHY calves is as simple as 1,2,3 farmers at a field day in Ireland heard last month. One is for colostrum from first milkings for calves’ first feeds; two for giving colostrum within two hours of birth; and three for at least three litres of colostrum per calf.
“Colostrum is essential to protect the health of new born calves,” stressed Muireann Conneely, of Teagasc Moorepark.
Ingrid Lorenz from University College Dublin had another 1,2,3 list for managing scouring calves: one, remove sick calves from the group; two, rehy-drate with up to 5 litres of electrolyte; three, con-tinue to feed milk.
The field day host farmer feeds up to 6 litres of milk replacer per calf per day until calves are 100kg to ensure calves get off to a good start. Teagasc says that’s reflected in the weights of his yearling heifers and culminates in replacement dairy heifers calv-ing at 550kg.
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
MACHINERY & PRODUCTS 41
Gorse monstered, kikuyu creamed with scarcely a shrugTHREE-METRE HIGH gorse or seem-ingly indestructible kikuyu grass are destroyed with scarcely a shrug by farmers and contractors using Berti mulchers, reports the New Zealand dis-tributor Farmgard.
For example, Nick Seddon, at Kaik-oura, has for ten years used Berti mulchers to clear 100ha of gorse-cov-ered rolling hills.
He first considered spraying the gorse but decided mulching would improve his chance of keeping ahead of regrowth.
Now he claims higher production and better pasture for his sheep and cattle on the once gorse-affected pad-docks, he says.
“We’ve got the pasture back again. The gorse is still there but the grass grows up through the gorse once it’s been mulched, so its good cattle fodder -- as opposed to having nine foot-high gorse bushes everywhere.
“Now we just repeat mulch every year to keep it all mowed and in check.”
In Canterbury, farmer Bill Wilson
uses a Berti TSB 300 to top paddocks on stony ground.
“Stones don’t affect it as they do an ordinary mower; it just never flinches. The stones don’t get thrown against the tractor and the machine mulches the weeds well.”
“We had a paddock of horehound and I used it on that in amongst stones and it’s done a fantastic job, again not suffering damage from the stones.”
In Northland, where livestock are sometimes kept fed during big dries by kikuyu grass, the ‘African immigrant’ is kept in check -- or condition -- by Berti mulchers fitted with hammer flail and Y-flail units.
This treatment of the sometimes-helpful, sometimes-pesky grass is recommended by the Kikuyu Action Group.
The group chairman, respected
dairy farmer Murray Jagger, has worked kikuyu grass for 20 years. “Five years ago we got a small Berti model and now have moved onto a 2m wide TBM super mulcher.”
Farmgard says kikuyu severely tests the mulchers by the sheer volume of material they are required to shift, and its fibrous nature, especially in autumn.
Elsewhere in Northland, contractor Don Lilly at Kaitaia, is said to be con-vinced of the robustness of the Berti product.
“They are so robust and easy to oper-ate. As long as you keep them well main-tained and greased they just go and go. We can do a hectare an hour with top-ping in a reasonable shaped paddock.”
Berti mulchers increase farm pro-duction by producing better pasture and by bringing wasteland into pro-duction. Mulching tops pasture at high speed leaving a fine mulch and no build-up of windrows. Browntop, cocksfoot and other low producing grasses are eliminated to allow high producing grass to rejuvenate.
It wipes out rushes, reduces thistles to a fine mulch that breaks down quickly and allows rapid regrowth of pasture. Then there’s mulching of crop residues, tussock, broom and matagouri.
Mulching eliminates dead grass at the base of sward that can stunt regrowth, and it minimises reseeding of weeds. This can reduce ryegrass stag-gers and prevent spring pasture deteri-oration, giving stock more palatable pasture.
Berti design features include an adjustable tailgate, a chamber in which a venturi effect is created for more effective cutting, and skids reckoned to be the longest found on any mulcher available.
A heavy duty RHS A frame and dou-ble-row self-aligning bearings on a 60mm stub shaft puts this among the heaviest in the industry, Farmgard says. Its 2300rpm rotor is claimed to be the only such component on the market with drop-forged flail lugs. Tel. 09 275 5555 or 03 437 9000 www.farmgard.co.nz
Gorse and kikuyu grass are easily managed by Berti mulchers, claim its NZ distributors.
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
CASE IH is extending the proven VariCut 3050 header series for the 2014 growing season, with a new 12.5m now topping out the range.
“This new header offers the oppor-tunity to make better use of the high threshing capacity of the latest Case IH combines and further increase harvest-ing efficiency,” explains Tim Fanning, operations manager for Case IH.
“Furthermore, this new 12.5m Vari-Cut header offers the optimum working width for Controlled Traffic Farming systems based on 12m widths, which are becoming increasingly popular on larger farms across Europe.”
The new header features several new developments and innovative technolo-gies. In addition to the rugged frame and the double floor design, a one-piece reel is used. This allows for an optimum field of vision, even with such a large working width.
Short or long grain dividers, as well as side-knives for oilseed rape, are available as options. Header knife position can be adjusted within a 57cm range, allowing
for optimum adaptation to different crop situations and the hydraulically-driven reel can be operated above or below the level of the knife, with a pat-ented reel protection system avoiding contact between reel and knife, partic-ularly during knife extension or retrac-tion. Without using tools, the angle of the reel tines can easily be adjusted from the side of the header. All these VariCut fea-tures are designed to ensure the engine and the threshing and cleaning systems – and hence the combine as a whole – oper-
ate at full capacity and efficiency. Optimum protection of the auger is
achieved through a centre mounted sup-port assembly, says Fanning.
“With the huge volumes of crops we must also ensure we optimise the crop flow as it transitions from the auger to the intake elevator,” he says.
“Our split auger design ensures this happens. In order to reduce power con-sumption and balance the header, the knife is separated in two halves, one
being driven from the left and the other from the right, thus reducing the strain on the cutter bar and enhancing reliabil-ity.”
Case IH engineers have also improved the Field Tracker system, with four sen-sors now providing enhanced ground hugging on hillsides and in uneven fields.
“The new header not only optimises the throughput of our Axial-Flow com-bines, but also opens new pathways to more sustainability and improved soil
protection, not least from fewer field passes, shortened turnaround time and – in conjunction with the track systems available for the front axles of Case IH Axial-Flow combines – markedly lower soil pressure”, says Fanning.
The new header can now be ordered for the 2014 harvest season.
Case IH is imported in New Zealand by C B Norwood Distributors Ltd.
(0800) CASE IH or visit www.caseih.co.nz
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• Strong regrowth for increased production
• Fine even spread of mulch distributed over the full cutting width
• No windrows like a slasher/topper
• Eliminates dead grass at base of sward that stunts regrowth
• Prevents reseeding of weeds
• Stock feed on palatable pasture
• Reduction of ryegrass staggers with increased pasture production
• Multipurpose - deals to rushes, thistles, maize stubble and crop residues
• Quick return of wasteland to pasture - gorse and scrub chopped in one pass
• Cheaper and more effective than spraying
• Recommended by Kikuyu Action Group
• 20 year proven track record in NZ conditions
• A very versatile and capable tool to have on your farm
BE77
We looked at other brands, but bought a BERTI because they are a lot more solid, they have a good history, and a guy that used to work for us has one and swears by it.
With a BERTI pasture mulcher, it allows the animals to get in and graze where they don’t normally go.
The rushes die out, and the grass thickens up to become lush, top quality pasture.
– ORGANIC FARMER
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
MACHINERY & PRODUCTS 43
Post driver offers farmer extra flexibilityBUYING A Revolution post driver is enabling a Te Kuiti farmer to get more stock classes onto a larger area of his dry stock farm.
William and Karen Oliver run a 1300ha operation near Te Kuiti, where they winter 16,000 stock units in equal proportions of sheep, cattle and deer.
Oliver has always run an equal ratio of deer, sheep and beef in the operation – providing him constant cash flow as well as efficiently con-trolling all the pasture available on the property.
“I find sheep, beef and deer com-plement each other by how they graze,” he explains.
“Deer graze the steeper country
more efficiently than sheep or cattle and they seem to focus on different species in the pasture.”
However, Oliver says fencing infra-structure on one of the properties is not as good as it could be, requiring extensive maintenance and replace-ment.
“We are using this as an opportu-nity to rethink the whole farm and are fencing off the better areas for maize, with 47ha in this summer and target-ing 65ha next summer.
“We are creating efficient, reliable infrastructure with a new stock water reticulation, races so the management is not chasing its tail and can be pro-ductive, and not reactive which is a horrible place to be.”
Oliver had bought a side-mounted post driver and sought the help of
Grant Nutbeam, a full-time fencer, to bring the sheep fencing up to stan-dard.
While the side-mounted post driver was enough for sheep fencing, both Nutbeam and Oliver believed they needed a more manoeuvrable machine to handle the deer fencing. “Previously the fencer had to dig the first 600mm for the strainer then lift it into the hole,” he explained. “When you’re talking about 3.6m strainers it’s hard on the body, it also becomes a potential occupational safety and health issue.”
With the Revolution 180, Oliver says the fencer is able to use the ver-satility of the machine to drill the hole in rhyolite rock, manoeuvre the mast around to hook the strainer on with a short chain, then lift with the tele-scopic mast and drop the strainer into its hole.
“You can do more in a day easier; the whole job is easier with that kind of function.”
The post driver has 180 degree radius rotation, side shift capability of 600 mm, across line angle move-ment of 57 degrees, inline angle movement of 30 degrees and a tele-scopic mast with a working range of 3.3–5.4 m.
Oliver says this versatility will be handy when Nutbeam does deer fencing along the hills. “It will be great on steeper terrain.”
The farm’s 110hp John Deere 6330 powers the post thumper. Tel. 09 292 8063www.revolutionpostdrivers.co.nz
GARETH GILLATTThe Revolution 180 allows more fencing to be done in a day.
www.powerfarming.co.nz
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With numerous competitions including: lawnmower races, dog trials, and tractor pull and logger sports to mention a few the Northland Field Days Committee claims it has arranged something for everyone.
Held in Dargaville, two and a half hours Northwest of Auckland, 40 min-utes west of Whangarei and one hour South of Kaikohe the Northland Field Days is a fun three day event from February 27 to March 1. Free parking is available close to showgrounds with regular public transport running to and from the event.
Stunts and sheep racing at Northland Field Days
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
44 MACHINERY & PRODUCTS
Show presents NZ’s first ‘live’ milkingDAIRY TECHNOLOGY suppliers Lely, TechniPharm and Cowhouse Construction last week held a ‘live’ robotic milking display at the Southern Field Days, Waimumu.
A small-scale cow house hosted a ‘large’
herd of 10 cows during the three-day show. Site visitors heard about housing cows, robotic milking and new ways of sustainable dairy farming.
The companies say a benefit of cow housing and robotic milking is that very
little effluent is created, and this is captured and redistributed in a controlled way, helping to reduce N leaching.
Robotic milking began in 1992, when Lely launched its Astronaut A4 system. The company says robot milking technology
is gaining momentum as more farmers better understand its benefits. Lely has the largest number of robot farms globally and in New Zealand.
It reports much interest in how robotic milking can work in
the context of pastoral grazing and cow housing.
“Because of this Lely New Zealand has worked with TechniPharm and Cow House Construction to expose a wider audience to robotic milking.”Tel. 07 850 4050www.lely.com
Recycle and winTREAT YOUR agri-chemical empties as you would your empty beer bottles, says recycler Agrecovery.
The firm wants all farmers’ empty agrichemi-cal, animal health and dairy hygiene containers, says spokesman Graeme Peters.
“We’re encouraging farmers, growers and other agchem users to throw their empties on the back of the ute, as they would their empty beer bottles, and bring them to our collection network for free recycling.”
Each participating farmer will be in to win one of ten $500 vouchers to spend at their preferred rural retailer when they recycle in February or March.
Agrecovery says recycled containers, processed by Astron Plastics, “go another round”, commonly being made into underground electric cable covers – last year enough to stretch from Auckland to Invercargill and back. Agrecovery is part of quality assurance pro-grammes such as NZ GAP.
“Thanks to the support of our 57 brand owners 3000 commonly used product containers can be recycled free,” Peters says. “This number is increasing, partic-ularly in dairy hygiene where we’ve just welcomed Farm Guard (Orica NZ) into the programme.”
Peters says a recent report by Environment Canter-bury said about 700,000kg of containers are burned, buried in farm pits or stockpiled annually in Canter-bury alone. “So it’s clear we need to encourage a change in disposal habits.”www.agrecovery.co.nz
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The PNEUMATICSTAR-PRO can work more aggressively in rough stalky crop and de-thatching.
RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
MACHINERY & PRODUCTS 45
AT THE Agritechnica trade fair last year, New Hol-land unveiled Dynamic Feed Roll technology as an option for the powerful twin-rotor combine harvesters, the CR8000 and CR9000.
The feed roll with its new dynamic stone protection system is installed tangentially across the two longitudi-nal rotors in the combine harvester, the company says.
The Dynamic Feed Roll delivers the harvested grain uniformly to the twin rotors as well as providing an effec-tive method for stone protection on the move, by way of a stone catcher trough beneath the feed rotor.
Many years of trials at the R&D Centre in Zedelgem have demonstrated that this feed roll delivers tangible benefits in terms of grain quality.
Furthermore, the tests have shown that the Dynamic Feed Roll requires no additional power requirement because the improved crop delivery to the rotor area actu-ally reduces the need for power.
The advantages for the user are:• continuous ‘non-stop’ stone protection• excellent grain qualityimproved crop flow through continuous supply to the
rotor• less strain on the rotor drivesThe Dynamic Feed Roll technology is being offered
as an option for all CR combine harvesters from 2014 onwards.
New Holland is imported in New Zealand by C B Nor-wood Distributors Ltd. Tel: (06) 356-4920 Visit: www.newholland.co.nz
Feed-roll technology leaves no stone unturned at harvest Harvest grain delivered uniformily.
Check out the latest news and information atwww.ruralnews.co.nz
Contact your local rural supplies merchant or phone 0800 266 258
Serious about Fencing!
How to fencing guides on you tube “strainrite fencing guides”
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46 RURAL TRADER
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
RURAL TRADER 47
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BREAKING NEWS MANAGEMENT STORIES MARKETS & TRENDS MACHINERY REVIEWS
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Visit www.sheepvax.co.nz and talk to your vet about a vaccination plan today.
FEBRUARY 18, 2014: ISSUE 555 www.ruralnews.co.nz
RURALNEWSTO ALL FARMERS, FOR ALL FARMERS
Northland Field Days
DARGAVILLE FEBRUARY 27-MARCH 1
Northland event enjoys a renaissanceNORTHLAND Field Days will field lots of new events and exhibitors this year, say the organisers.
Held at Dargaville February 27--March 1, the field days is the largest outdoor event in Northland. Hundreds of exhibitors attend from Australia and New Zealand, converging on the 32ha site owned by the organizers.
New-exhibitor numbers are said to have swelled by 50 companies.
Excitement about the event is at an all-time high, says coordinator Meagan Edmonds.
About 90% of available sites had been allocated by the end of January, exhibi-tors coming from as far afield as South-land, Melbourne and Brisbane. “There is certainly more excitement over the event than at this time last year.”
Edmonds says a wide range of exhib-
itors are offering a wide range of prod-ucts.
And new entertainment is scheduled for visitors of all ages, for example, cute and cuddly creatures in the mobile farm park’s petting zoo. Children will be able to pet and feed animals such as turtles, chick-ens, ducks, and a miniature horse and dogs, or ride around the site on a cart pulled by Clydesdale horses.
The Tru Test Group site will hold a live auction three times a day, and a reel winding competition. Radio Hauraki will hold a ‘Win your weight in meat’ competition at the Tru Test site.
Tru Test marketing manager Shaun Owen says it will be the most interac-tive site the company has yet mounted at the Northland Field Days.
On Saturday March 1 radio station Classic Hits Northland will run gala games such as wife-carrying and dunking for apples.
Jamie Mackay, host of The Farming Show on Radio Sport, will broadcast live from field days.
Other contests include lawnmower races, dog trials, trac-tor pulling and logging sports .
There’ll be something for everyone, says field days committee president Lew Duggan. “It doesn’t matter what age you are, where you come from or what your
GARETH GILLATTOrganisers say excitement about this year’s field days are at an all-time high.
“It doesn’t matter what age you are, where you come from or what your interests are, you’ll see something that appeals to you.”
interests are, you’ll see something that appeals to you.”
Wind breaks will be mounted around the market area to shelter
exhibitors and visitors from southerly winds and dust.
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
2 NORTHLAND FIELD DAYS
Fun for allA FREESTYLE Motocross team and organisers of the popular Sheeplechase will be on show at the 2014 Northland Field days from February 27 to March 1, say organisers.
The Northland Field Days sponsored Freestyle New Zealand freestyle motocross team will be performing four 15-20 minute shows a day on Friday and Saturday.
Made up of Trent Garton from Kaitaia, Jason White from Palmerston North, Andrew Jackson from Gore and Stewart Eweing from Gore, considered to be the top four riders in New Zealand, the group will be sure to entertain the crowd with exhilarating and difficult moves including the cliff hanger, superman and back-flip.
Freestyle Motocross isn’t the only exciting addition to the event program according to organisers with a number of other exciting events planned.
Saturday will be jam packed with activities says Pascoe thanks to the team at Classic Hits Northland and Sheep ‘n’ Show.
The team at Sheep n Show will be holding sheep races and live shearing events for the whole of the field days with three races a day and two shearing dis-plays a day.
With numerous competitions including: lawn-mower races, dog trials, and tractor pull and logger sports to mention a few the Northland Field Days Com-mittee claims it has arranged something for everyone.
Free parking is available close to showgrounds with regular public transport running to and from the event.
New tractor displays big technology liftFENDT’S NEXT generation of 125-165hp tractors will have their New Zealand debut at the Northland Field Days.
The Fendt 500 Vario series steps up from the 400 range.
AGCO New Zealand manager Peter Scott says the 500 range rep-resents a big lift in technology, performance and ease of use for tractors in the 120-160hp.
The first 500 series machine delivered in Australasia went to a farmer in Kaitaia earlier this year.
With a curved, full-height front screen, like the Fendt 700 series, operators will have a good view of the loader at all levels, Scott says.
Controls are redesigned, almost all the essential ones now located on the right armrest and backed up with a 7 or 10 inch touch screen ter-minal for extra information on per-formance.
Scott says the location and the
layout of the controls makes oper-ation easy. “These tractors are so easy to drive they’re really a joy once you get in them.”
The 500 series will be avail-able with Fendt’s Varioguide GPS system assisting with steering and equipment operation for more effi-cient harvesting and field work.
Powered by a 4-cyl 4L Deutz engine, the range uses automatic output control to ensure engine load matches tasks at hand.
Fendt’s Vario ML 90 step-less transmission handles speed changes and all tractors in the range are capable of 50km/h at only 1700rpm.
Tractors can lift 7780kg at the rear and 3400kg at the front, allow-ing use of a large range of imple-ments. The 512 model (125hp) and 514 model (145hp) will be on show at the Bryant Tractors stand at Dar-gaville.
Scott says the full six-model range will be available in New Zea-
land offering 125-165hp – some-thing to suit all needs.
With variety in mind Fendt developed two versions of the 500 Vario, an entry-level ‘Power’ variant and the more highly specced ‘Profi’.
Both are available in the 125-165hp range. The Power variant has a maximum of four hydraulic remotes, a single acting rear link-age and 110L/min hydraulics.
Profi operators will have access
to up to seven hydraulic valves, with optional 158L/min and the ability to add climate control, double acting rear hydraulics, Var-ioguide and other features.
Big Fendt tractors have grown immensely in popularity in New Zealand, says Scott, who predicts the new 500 series will extend the brand’s reach into the lower power end of the market.www.fendt.com.au
GARETH GILLATT
Nicholas Vinac beside his new Fendt 512.
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
NORTHLAND FIELD DAYS 3
Inline system key to feed managementA PPP in-shed feed system has given a Turua farmer greater control of his feeding.
Phil Harrison and his wife Joan milk 550 cows on a 200ha property five minutes west of Turua.
Harrison has used grains in his system for some time, feeding palm kernel in mobile troughs to cows at key times of the year when cows were cycling.
However, Harrison noticed palm kernel’s effectiveness dropping as a production- driving feed, and the method of delivery was leaving some of the cows hungry.
When feeding stock, Harrison noticed that while the older, larger cows were able to get to the trailers to eat, the younger cows were missing out. Not only that, he also felt the feed value of palm kernel was dropping.
“The last three years, processors have got better at extracting the oil out of the palm kernels and cows aren’t responding as they
used to.”Harrison moved to a
blend provided by animal feeds and nutrition company Seales Winslow. He says he made sure all the animals had the same feeding opportunities before he bought into the grain programme.
Installing the system took four days, and the PPP service was fast and professional, says Harrison. “Four days and it was in. I was very impressed with how it all fitted together.”
Grain is stored in a nearby silo and delivered to cows via full row-length stainless steel tubs serviced by individual feed shoots, which guarantee each cow gets a measured amount.
The level of control has Harrison so confident that he now uses a Seales Winslow feed in the shed.
While the feed mix does include palm kernel, Harrison says it only makes up 10% of a mix containing a range of grains. This mixture will change depending on
results of testing by Seales Winslow staff.
“The nutritionists come and take samples. They came one month ago, took a milk reading and decided the protein was down, so they increased the protein portion of the mix. Having that level of control costs a little more but it has been worth it.”
The result has been a dramatic drop in empty rates, Harrison says. While there were 60 empty cows last season, pregnancy scans have revealed only 20 empty cows -- a more positive picture for calving next season. “I put that down to getting that meal to them over the crunch period. They’ve got a shine
in their coats; it helped them get a kick start.”
While conditions are currently good and Harrison would traditionally have taken meal out of the system this late in the season, the extra level of control offered by the new system has inspired him to break stock into two herds, with
lighter cows each getting 1.5kg of meal a day, and older, larger cows being limited to pasture and silage.
“At $8 a kg you’ve still got to do something to get them kicking over.”
The in-shed system also enables Harrison to supplement minerals at certain times of the year
and he is getting ready to add zinc to the system to prevent facial eczema.
“We’re going to put zinc into the system now and use magnesium in spring. It’s great way of getting all the minerals into the cows while saving one labor unit at the time of year when it is really needed.”
RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
4 NORTHLAND FIELD DAYSHay equipment adjusted at the touch of finger
ORIGIN AGROUP will show off rakes and mowers at the Southern Field Days – implements it says offer users levels of in-cab hydraulic controls never seen before.
The machinery seller co-op will launch addi-tions to the twin rotor rake and Novacat mower ranges fresh from Euro-pean shows, with a new level of control and fea-tures.
The 2.62 – 3.02m Nova-
cat 262 and 302 rear mowers, available for the first time in New Zealand this month, can be raised and lowered from the unit rather than the tractor’s 3PL system.
With 50cm of extra movement independent of
the tractor’s linkage, oper-ators will be able to mount implements without man-ually adjusting the swing arm length, often a time consuming and dirty task.
This also helps during road transport, allowing adjustment of the rig’s
centre of gravity on the fly. The unit’s centre-pivot point is controlled hydrau-lically as well.
The mower allows the
GARETH GILLATT
Novacat mowers can be raised and lowered from the cab rather than the tractor’s 3 point linkage system.
operator 22 degrees of movement in either direc-tion on the central pivot point, ensuring cuts are even regardless of land contours. The new models also have an automatic safety function where the mower lifts 15 degrees if blades come in contact with a hard object.
Also on the Origin site will be three new 5.9-7.6m twin rotor top rakes. Co-op principal Dave Don-nelly says the addition of more tine arms, new rotor drives and up to 6 wheels per rotor will allow oper-ators better results when
dealing with the increas-ingly widening range of crops being cut for hay and silage.
The 5.9m Top 612C, 6.45-7m Top 702 C model and 6.9-7.6 Top 762 C model will also make raking awkwardly shaped paddocks easier, says Don-nelly.
The maker has also added a 73 degree turn-ing arc to rear rake wheels and shortened the chassis by 200mm than previous models for manoeuvrabil-ity. Tel. 07 823 7562www.originagroup.co.nz
New products on show from GallaghersGALLAGHER SAYS it will showcase an impressive line-up of new EID and fencing products at upcoming regional field days.
Darrell Jones, key account manager for Gallagher Animal Management, says the company will again have a strong presence at 2014 regional events, including the Central Districts Field Days, Northern Agricultural Field Days and the South Island Agricultural Field Days.
“Our main focus will be on highlighting the benefits of the exciting products we’ve launched in recent months. These products are aimed at making life easier for farm-ers and specifically designed to solve everyday farming challenges.”
Displays at regional events will again have a strong emphasis on animal EID (electronic identification) and weighing products, including the new HR5 handheld EID tag reader and data collector.
Launched late 2013, Jones says the HR5 has already proved a hit with farmers. It features an alpha numeric keypad that gives the user the ability to immediately enter or edit data without having to return to a PC or weighscale. This makes the HR5 an incredibly powerful data collection device that enables farmers to easily collect and record vir-tually limitless amounts of information on their animals.
Gallagher will also showcase the new Wireless Water Level Monitoring System – a “crisis averting” monitoring device that accurately measures water levels in tanks or ponds and wirelessly transmits this information to a touch screen display unit mounted in a convenient location.
PPP Feed Systems are specifically designed to handle PKE - guaranteedPPP have Installation Agents from Northland to Southland offering a full back up service
Check out our website: www.pppindustries.co.nz
Phone: 0800 901 902 | Email: [email protected]
SilosGrain silos from 6 tonne to 250 tonnes PKE vibrators – money back guarantee to work! Suitable for PKE, dairy meals and grain Mineral & liquid additive system Utility Augers
Herringbone Feed SystemsStainless steel ensures hygiene is excellentOne dispenser per cow, clear dispenser allows plenty of light in shedNon-breakable drop tubes with no blockages in drop tubeSheds from 10 aside to 73 aside, using PKE to dairy rationsFeed rates as low as 0.5 kg upwards
Rotary Feed SystemsStainless trays, anti-robbing barsSingle or multiple auger linesLiquid injectionMineral additive line suitable for EID systems
Press Screw SeparatorsA simple solutionPPP installed NZs first separator in 2002Clarifiers available for extra screening down to 80 microns
Automated Calf FeedersRear better heifers for more milk productionSave on labourOffers every calf the same opportunityEurope number #1 selling systemAuto wash system
On Farm MillingDisc MillingAustralian dairy farmers say “for less grain you produce more milk”
SEE US AT THE FIELD DAYS
Northland - Site 270
Central Districts - Sites 10a/11a
RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
NORTHLAND FIELD DAYS 5
SCHOLARSHIPS TOTAL-LING $10,000 will this year be awarded to up to five young Northland farming students.
Northland Field Days is offering $10,000 from which five farming stu-dents at recognised ter-tiary schools may each apply for $2000.
Field days commit-tee member Kim Leigh-Mackenzie says they want to give young Northland-ers a ‘leg up’ in one of New Zealand’s most promising industries.
Application forms will be available at the North-land Field Days office during the event and may be downloaded from the field days’ website from February 27.www.northlandfielddays.co.nz
Scholarships available
Clamp bucket – affordable and practicalDIGGER OWNERS look-ing for a multi-purpose digger bucket have a new option available from an equipment supplier exhib-iting at the Northland Field Days.
Kerikeri digger hire company and attach-ment maker ACE Equip-ment will launch its Robur clamp bucket at the field days. The implement is said to give operators the control and benefits of a power clamp without the need for an extra thumb/clamp hydraulic line.
Powered by the auxil-iary hydraulic circuit most often used by farmers to power the tilt bucket, the clamp bucket needs none of the extra hydraulic lines usually required. It allows the bucket to be used on different diggers without extra modification.
ACE Equipment says the bucket has “hundreds” of different uses, and that customers find a new use almost every week.
“It can be used for silage, tree stumps, logs, rocks, fence posts, build-ing rock retaining walls, trenching, land clear-ing and demolition,” says Clem Simpkin, ACE Equipment company director.
“We went out to one forestry user and they had the digger on a skid site and were using it to load a logging truck.”
And as the clamp is powered by a large inbuilt hydraulic cylin-der -- not a smaller sepa-rately mounted one -- it is capable of gripping with much more power than any other thumb or power clamp, the company says.
Designed in New Zea-land and made over-
seas, the products are for farmers, contractors and smaller operators need-ing specialised buckets but unable to justify the cost of more expensive gear.
ACE says that via its rental operation custom-ers can try out the bucket without buying. “When people hire the diggers
with the bucket clamp attachment they usually come back and say ‘wow, we want to buy one’.”
Northland Field Day visitors will get the chance to try out the bucket for themselves during a time-trial the company will run.
Anybody aged 16 and holding learner driver
license will be invited to complete tasks including hooking a balloon on a nail without it popping it, bal-ancing a log between posts and stacking rocks within a circle. A daily prize is offered. – Gareth GillattTel. 0800 407 500www.aceequipment.co.nz
Strength / Quality / Performancewww.mcintosh.net.nz0800 622 276 Palmerston north
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RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
6 NORTHLAND FIELD DAYS
New generation of disc cultivators unveiledNEW ZEALAND machin-ery cooperative Origin Agroup has begun nation-wide launches of its new
3-6m Pöttinger Terradisc 1001 series, and the imple-ments will be seen at the Northland Field Days.
Managing director Dave Donnelly says visi-
tors will notice a rede-signed cultivator with more functions.
The European maker has made the space between the disc and the
arm wider and extended the clamp arm width.
Also changed is the centre of gravity to just in front of the roller for trailed versions of the
discs.The designers have also
fitted 58cm discs -- 7cm or 13% larger than those found on 1000 series models.
GARETH GILLATT
Donnelly says the result is a stable machine capable of producing con-sistent results even in heavier soils, remaining efficient at higher speeds and working to depths of 120mm, while offering a service life 45% longer than previous generations.
“With the chassis now positioned towards the front, the machine oper-ates extremely smoothly in different soils and varying operating condi-tions. It virtually swal-lows up every bump in the ground.”
Despite changes the discs have a lower pro-file and hydraulic folding
5-6m models have a 20cm smaller travel width than previous models.
Pöttinger has also added features to make units more functional, the company says.
Hydraulic depth con-trol has been included as standard, allowing oper-ators to adjust working depth on the job from the tractor seat while adjust-able outer discs mean operators will be able to compensate for overlay when working up a pad-dock.
Tractor power range required is 95-204hp. Tel. 07 823 7562www.originagroup.co.nz
“We had high SCC (somatic cell count) and needed to fix the problem.
With Varivac, our situation has changed - so much so that we were recently delighted to win second prize in a major competition that our local dairy co-op ran for the quality of our milk.
To get a trophy for farm excellence and milk quality was just marvellous.”
- Oubaas and Renee Pretorius
CSL
003
www.corkillsystems.co.nz‘Specialists in Dairy Automation Solutions’
For FREE advice & no-obligation quote,Phone Vern on 0274 460 165or FREEPHONE 0800 10 7006 or email: [email protected]
Varivac...another winner!
See us at Site 247B
✓ Time to cool milk significantly reduced✓ Improve milk quality due to quicker cool down✓ Reduce power costs✓ Suitable for existing or new installations✓ Pay-back in first year depending on vat design
and refrigeration plant condition
HOW? Replacement of the traditional (and old technology) Thermostatic Expansion Valves (TEV’s) with Carel Electronic Expansion Valves (EEV’s) provides outstanding superheat control of your refrigeration plant. This in turn maximises the cooling in the milk vat. By also installing Carel FCP Condenser Fan Speed Controls you can further maximise the plant potential.
Ask your Refrigeration Technician or contact Eurotec for more information. Phone us on 0800 111 990
Head Office: Auckland: Tel. 09-579 1990Wellington: Tel. 04-499 3591 | Christchurch: 03-366 0017
Email: [email protected] | Web: www.eurotec.co.nz
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See for yourself why this new liner is changing the gamein New Zealand dairy sheds.
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Northern Fieldays Site 160
Central Districts Site E14
RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
harrows and seed drills. The base configuration has mechanical control and a single 60L/min pump with six rear distributors, which can be increased up to eight and complemented with an oil flow regulator. The system delivers maxi-mum oil flow at 1600 rpm.
The 5-Series is the first to feature the new “E Class” cab, developed by Deutz-Fahr engineers the Italian design house Giu-giaro Design, known for its work on Ferrari and Lam-borghini cars.
All levers and switches are colour coordinated and laid out in a logical pattern
in a single operating console according to function and frequency of use.
The main controls are integrated into the right hand armrest, which can be adjusted longitudinally to suit the individual need of the operator.
A two year, 2000 hour warranty applies.
The tractor is currently available under Power Farming’s ‘try-before-you-buy’ hire option under which the hire cost, less a setup fee, is credited towards the price if the machine is bought.Tel. 07 902 2200
NORTHLAND FIELD DAYS 7Performance, technology and affordability
THE RECENTLY launched Deutz Fahr will add per-formance, technology and affordability to the mid-range tractor market, says distributor Power Farm-ing.
The Deutz Fahr 5-Series comes in three models: the 5110 (110hp), 5120 (120hp) and 5130 TTV (130hp).
Power Farming’s train-ing manager for New Zea-land and Australia, Mark Daniel, says the 5-Series represents a new gen-eration of powerful eco-friendly engines, inno-vative powershift trans-missions, intelligent hydraulic systems, impres-sive PTO performance and other features unusual on medium-power tractors.
“It’s a brilliant mid-range tractor, with an excellent balance between weight and power.
“The 5100 and the 5120 are ideal for livestock oper-ations, dairy farmers or cropping, while the 5130 is a specialised tractor with variable transmission and other high-spec features – ideal for higher-end oper-ators or for contractors chasing more power and function.”
Power comes from a new Deutz-Fahr TCD 3.6 LO4, 4-cyl, 3.6L engine with the maker’s electron-ically controlled common rail injection, a turbo-charger with intercooler and wastegate valve, and a proportional speed vis-costatic fan. Maximum torque is from 1200-1900rpm.
The engines use main-tenance-free DOC cata-lytic converters and do not need AdBlue or Go Clear,
Power Farming says. Daniel says the 5-Series’
‘stop-and-go’ transmis-sion allows the tractors to be driven like an automatic car, ideal for a lot of for-ward-reverse operations, eg, “for livestock farm-ers feeding out and others who can do a huge number of forward/reserve opera-tions every day…. They’re not having to use a clutch pedal all day to change from forward to reverse and vice versa, and that becomes important when you’re spending all day behind the wheel.”
Also, a fast-steer option virtually halves the number the turns of the steering wheel needed to make a complete turn on the headlands thanks to a secondary pump on the power steering which doubles the volume of oil going through the system when it’s engaged.
A 6.6 tonne lift capac-ity on the 3-point linkage is good for heavy imple-ments, and if it’s weighted properly, it’ll pull those implements as well.
“A lot of tractors in the mid-range are built too light,” Daniel says. “They might boast impressive power, but they can’t actu-ally get that power to the ground. The 5-Series has a nice compromise between weight and ability. In its standard setup it weighs about 4.5t, but it can also be weighted up to a maxi-mum of 9.5t, giving it the weight it needs for good grip for cultivation work when you need it.”
The hydraulic system, with push/pull connectors, will power balers, power
The new Deutz Fahr 5-Series range adds to mid-range market, says Power Farming.
See You There!
February 27-March 1, 2014enjoy a great event with us!
EVERYTHING IN ONE PLACE...Friends, Family, Farming, Fun!
The largest agricultural event in Northland!www.northlandfielddays.co.nz | Phone 09 439 8998
State Highway 14Dargaville
Gates: 9:00am-4:30pmEntry: Adults (16yrs+) $15 • Children (5-16yrs) $5 • Under 5s – Free
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Visit us at Site C72
RURAL NEWS // FEBRUARY 18, 2014
8 NORTHLAND FIELD DAYS
Is going under cover the answer?
Stand-off and covered stand-off structures could be the answer in balancing higher cow numbers with more stringent environmental demands.
STAND-OFF AND covered stand-off
structures might be the answer for farmers trying to balance higher stocking numbers and more
stringent environmental demands, says Hamish McMillan, of HerdHomes.
Research done
by Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Jan Wright, showed nearly 300,000ha
GARETH GILLATT
of traditional sheep and beef land was converted into dairy farms between 1996 and 2008 - with most conversions in Canterbury, Otago and Southland.
Using results from a simplified version of Overseer, Wright’s report revealed rivers saw nitrogen increases of between 20-30% in Canterbury, 10-20% in Otago and 15-20% in Southland during that time.
McMillan says regional councils have taken notice of river quality and conversations he has had with staff and policy makers on the Canterbury and Otago regional councils suggest government restrictions could be introduced on how many conversions can take place.
“We’ve got examples of dairy farmers of meeting proposed standards and doing everything the councils want.
“Councils just want to see more acknowledgment being made of the environmental impacts dairying has made and more steps being made to mitigate that.”
McMillan believes an on-off grazing system supported by a covered or uncovered stand-off pad could be the best way forward, especially on properties with higher stocking rates.
“The rest of the world pretty much focuses on all year round housing while New Zealand focuses on all year round outdoor grazing.
“On-off grazing is a new way that people are trying to get their heads around.”
With on-off systems, stock spend 2-3 hours of their day on stand-off pads, only going onto pastures to graze.
By doing this, McMillan says the majority of effluent and urine, the main factors behind nitrogen leaching, is contained and stocks are kept off pasture when it is at its most sensitive.
“It’s not just shelter; it’s a management system on how we can enhance pastoral grazing system with shelter.”
McMillan says effluent from stand-off pads and structures can be applied strategically, eliminating chances of runoff. Studies carried out by Massey University back this theory up, showing that on-off systems produced 60% less nitrogen leaching than operations under a 24 hour grazing system.
Covered feed pads, like those offered by HerdHomes, also provide extra shelter for animals while cutting down on the effluent storage space requirements, says McMillan.
As effluent doesn’t come in contact with rainwater, it can be stored as a solid in bunkers.
This does not come with the same resource consent requirements and is easier to spread on pastures.
Northland farmer, Steven Holland, says placing a roof over his 105m x 10m feed pad cut effluent storage requirements from 20,000 m3 to 5000m3.
“The runoff completely vanished. Not one ounce of water comes off the feed pad even in the pouring rain.”
McMillan says the company has further expanded storage capabilities with the release of three bunker systems, which increase effluent storage capacity on HerdHomes structures by 50%.
HerdHomes account manager Zoe Pow says some form of stand-off structure makes sense for anybody with a higher than average stocking rate.
“If your stocking rate is above the district average then you should be looking into some form of stand-off facility.”Visit: http://herdhomes.co.nz/ or tel 07 857 0526
Effluent from stand-off pads and structures can be applied strategically, eliminating chances of runoff. Studies carried out by Massey University back this theory up.
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Phone Office: 0800 4 SEEDS or 03-324 3951 or 0274-323 834View 2014 info on our website www.cridgeseeds.co.nz