dairy news 10 sept 2013

rising to the occasionFencing floats clear of floodwatersPage 54

Passion for friesiansCow care vital Page 40

Kiwi infant formula makers struggle in China. Page 3

september 10, 2013 issue 298 // www.dairynews.co.nz

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Dai ry News september 10, 2013

news // 3

news ��3-26

oPinion ��28-30

agribusiness ��31-32

ManageMent ��34-42

aniMal health ��43-49

effluent & water ManageMent �� 50-61

Machinery & Products �� 62-66

A2 milk unaffected by botulism scare. Pg.11

Bumper crop of heifers. Pg.38

Kiwi entrepreneurial spirit lures research. Pg.20-21

fonterra’s chief execu-tive Theo Spierings and the direc-tors are in China this week to start trying to repair the company’s rep-utation following the botulism food safety scare.

Meanwhile the operational review on the precautionary recall released in New Zealand last week has been translated into Chinese

in-house, in an attempt to ensure the correct information comes out in China.

Spierings says they are trans-lating it into Chinese themselves “because we are seeing over the last events that once we issue things in English and they get translated on the other side of the ocean, possibly different meanings are introduced

in the Chinese translations”.The translation was due to be

completed early this week.Meanwhile Spierings, the direc-

tors and the chief financial officer, Jonathan Mason, were due late last week to leave for a week-long visit to China.

They are spreading out into three groups, one each for the

north, east and south to talk will local authorities, customers and consumers, says Spierings. “We will make ourselves available to start our reputation strengthening.”

The co-op’s operational review was completed and a report released last week.

@dairy_newsfacebook.com/dairynews

Fonterra’s top brass in damage control

Kiwi value added products risks failing in China

high Profile media coverage is needed in China to get the message out that infant formula products are safe, says Chris Claridge from the NZ Infant Formula Exporters Asso-ciation.

The New Zealand Government needs to take the lead and Prime Min-ister John Key should visit soon, with industry people, he says.

Claridge is highly frustrated that he cannot seem to get his message heard in New Zealand: our products are still at high risk because the Chi-nese consumer still thinks New Zea-land infant formula is poisoned.

Meanwhile New Zealand’s com-petitors are cashing in.

Claridge made the comments to Dairy News from a mother-and-baby store in Guangzhou province where he was hearing first-hand the con-cerns that remain about New Zea-land products. He had met with 50 retailers the night before.

Carrickmore Nutrition, of which

Claridge is managing director, faces a loss on sales of at least 30% over the next three months.

“What is clear is all New Zealand brands are affected. The subtlety of Fonterra, wpc, botulism is com-pletely lost on the Chinese. All they hear is New Zealand, infant formula poison.

“I don’t know how I com-municate back to New Zea-land – I have been trying – this affects our ability to sell in China.”

In New Zealand every-one understands it was a false alarm, but not so in China. “All they hear is our infant formula is contaminated. The distribu-tors and the retailers are starting to understand it was all a false positive, but the consumers have not heard that message.

“It is the same story – bad news gets publicity, good news doesn’t. We need the Government to take the lead in China and get media coverage that our infant formula is safe.”

The offer from John Key to visit China should go ahead. But it needs

to have industry people involved oth-erwise it just becomes a general dis-cussion about New Zealand; it has to specific about products and infant formula.

Claridge says the issues of prod-

uct being unduly held up at Chinese ports seem to have resolved itself. “The issue here is to keep selling. The main purpose of my trip to China is to assure our distributors and retail-ers that our product is safe and it isn’t contaminated.

“I am meeting my retailers and distributors, we’re in 2100 stores in China. I am standing on a street in China going from city to city to try

to explain to all our retailers and dis-tributors in the period I am up here that there is nothing wrong with our products.

“Meanwhile all the other interna-tional brands – France and Australia

– are busy trying to capture this market. On September 23 a French label in association with the French Government are flying 20 or 30 journalists from Shanghai specifically to show them their infant for-mula industry.”

Claridge asks, “Does New Zealand understand what its lack of coordination and coher-ent approach means? It means our capacity to sell is reduced.

Sure we can sell bulk powders to the market but our ability to sell added value retail products in this market is at high risk.

“China is a huge place: just because we publish a few articles in the New Zealand media that it was a false positive, does everything get changed to normal? The answer is ‘no’. That message is not out in the media in China.”

PaM tiPapamelat@ruralnews�co�nz

Chris Claridge

DAi ry NEwS september 10, 2013

4 // news

Fonterra chief executive Theo Spierings (left) and communications director Kerry Underhill front up to the media.

Hats off to a better co-op – Leferinkfederated farMers Dairy chairman Willy Leferink says he is “heartened” by the findings of Fonterra’s operational review in the wake of the WPC80 contami-nation scare.

“Fonterra will be a better coop-erative for it,” he told Dairy News.

He applauded the promise to increase transparency, internally and externally, to improve infor-mation flows and the speed of

escalation of such incidents.“What worked well in this was

the product recall. I take my hat off to Fonterra for that. At the time all the focus, the media spec-ulation, was on the dirty pipe, not the recall, but that was the really important bit.”

Leferink says he doesn’t expect heads to roll as a result of the find-ings. “I’m totally opposed to that. There aren’t enough people in this

industry as it is and people learn from their mistakes. Experience is hard to replace.”

During last week’s media brief-ing on the operational review find-ings, Fonterra chief executive Theo Spierings said the future of the two managers put on leave shortly after the contamination crisis became public was a separate issue from the operational review. They would remain on leave until the

outcome of the directors’ review due late September.

However, on the issue of esca-lating food safety issues to the right levels, “there are definitely certain questions around people and they are on leave until the review is concluded” he added.

Leferink says everyone will await the outcome of the three remaining reviews.

– Andrew Swallow

‘Perfect storm’ flips Fonterra’s boat

fonterra was hit by a ‘perfect storm’ of unre-lated events and mistakes leading to the recall of whey product potentially contaminated with a lethal bacteria. This turned out to be a false alarm.

These included a miss-ing piece of plastic which initially lead to the repro-cessing of WPC80, the use of non-standard equip-ment for that reprocessing, and a one off delay in infor-mation sharing which lead to a delay in testing.

Computer systems in Australia had just been upgraded when the recall was launched and staff lack of experience with the system lead to delays in tracing the product once the recall was underway.

“Global recalls are never related to one event,”

says Spierings. “This is the result of a number of sepa-rate and unrelated events occurring in an unforeseen sequence. When you com-pare it to other crises this is always the case – there are always four or five events related to a crisis.”

However, as pinpointed in the operational review by group director of strat-egy Maury Leyland, the issue was not reported to the chief executive early enough. Spierings was told at 11pm on August 1, 24 hours after the AgResearch results indicated a poten-tially lethal clostridium botulinum and a month after that testing was com-missioned.

Spierings said he should have been told at the latest when the sample went to AgResearch to test for bot-ulinum in June, and argu-ably earlier than that when elevated readings indicated there could have been a


problem. “I am not saying I have the wisdom, but what you normally do is side-line the product which is in the pipeline, you call your customers and say ‘park it for now’. You do fur-ther testing and because it was such a rare example of botulinum in this part of the world you would have got the results from AgResearch and you would

have got a second opinion.“Because it is so rare,

it’s so unique in this part of the world, you would have asked the question ‘should we have a second opinion?’. That’s the end of June, not the end of July.”

Fonterra has now cre-ated a new role, group director of food safety and quality, reporting directly to the chief executive;

strengthened the remit and scope of the co-op’s food integrity council; and launched an internal food safety and quality hotline for staff and contractors to report concerns about potential food safety risks. It has also completed qual-ity audits at sensitive nutri-tional plants, including Hautapu, the source, the scare.

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news // 5

Handle early silage with caretaKing early silage this spring may help avoid a costly long-term loss of pasture quality, say rural professionals, as pasture covers nationwide reach unseasonably high levels.

But extra care’s needed in ensiling to ensure what’s conserved is worth keep-ing, they stress.

“The first thing to check is whether there’s a gen-uine surplus,” says Dairy NZ’s productivity team leader, Rob Brazendale. “Those who monitor pas-ture growth will be able to identify that with their feed wedge.”

Any pasture head-ing for a cover exceeding 3200kgDM/ha before the next grazing is a likely can-didate for taking out of the round and cutting when there’s a good forecast.

“One of the advantages at this time of year is the feed quality doesn’t deteri-orate so quickly so you can be a bit more patient wait-ing for the weather.”

Another advantage is contractors are likely to have less work, so should be more flexible with timing, he adds. “You really need three days of clear weather forecast.”

Cutting a smaller area at any one time is advis-able to reduce risk, but

with smaller areas, filling pits completely may not be possible so making baleage and leaving the pit to the main cut may be a better bet, he suggests.

He also recommends using an inoculants – “one tested and proven in New Zealand conditions.”

Independent nutri-tionist and silage special-ist Trish Lewis says the inoculant should be a fer-mentation enhancing one, as opposed to a stabilising type product. “You want an inoculant that’s got lactic acid producing bacteria in it that speeds up the fer-mentation.”

Whether to make pit or bale silage depends on what can be made best, she suggests. “Pit silage can go in slightly wetter, though modern balers are better at handling wet material.”

As always, rolling the pit to get air out, and sealing it well, is essential, but with wetter material care needs to be taken not to over pack it, she adds.

Taking silage now will not only start to rebuild feed reserves raided during last season’s drought, but will protect produc-tion down the track. “If you don’t [cut it], next time it’s grazed the pas-ture ME’s going to be down and the fibre up, and recently calved cows are already challenged with

the amount of dry matter they’ll eat, so their energy intake will be even less.”

An option for those still calv-ing is to give newly calved cows the first bite at any lon-ger-than-ideal pad-docks, then bring the remaining dry cows in to clean up. But for many that opportunity is almost past and ensiling surplus is now the way forward.

Lewis says she has one client, in Northland, who

has already taken two cuts.Talking to contrac-

tors in good time is vital, a point echoed by Rural Contractors Association president Steve Levet.

“If you are contem-

plating shutting up pad-docks for silage at this time of year, make sure they’re your drier ones,” he told Dairy News.

“The other thing is

health and safety. Make sure you tell the contractor about any hazards there might be in the paddock… stumps, tomos, lumps of concrete, holes, wet spots.

If it’s under the grass you can’t see it.”

A forgotten waratah stake or hot-wire stan-dard can seriously damage machinery, he adds.

handling grass ■ Identify looming surplus with feed wedge.

■ Contact contractor in good time.

■ Shut up driest paddocks.

■ Raise mower – easier wilt and less soil contamination.

■ Use fermentation enhancing inoculant.

■ Bales are a better bet than part pits.Pasture covers around the country have reached unseasonably high levels.

andrew swallow

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6 // news

How much grass is there?a QuicK check of monitor and dem-onstration farms shows how far ahead spring growth is on some farms.

DairyNZ’s Farmwatch data shows Scott Farm, near Hamilton, grew nearly 80kgDM/ha/day in the week to August 30 – twice that in the same week last year – taking average pasture cover to 2460kgDM/ha compared to 2230kgDM/ha last year.

Most other Farmwatch farms in Waikato also had covers ahead of last year, though the odd one, such as Hauraki, was behind. DairyNZ data from other regions in the North Island, when this article went to press, was lim-ited.

The figures presented are farm aver-ages, so some paddocks would have far more grass. DairyNZ productivity team leader, Rob Brazendale, says he’s seen a pre-graze cover in the Manawatu up to 5000kgDM/ha, way beyond the target 3000kgDM/ha.

“It’s very hard to get effective utilisa-tion of it at those covers and you’re not growing any more grass.”

Cutting for silage, even if it has to be fed out in a just a month or two, is a better bet to maintain pasture quality, he stressed (see main article).

In the South Island, mid-last week, Lincoln University Dairy Farm’s aver-age pasture cover was 2560kg DM/ha, down just 114kg DM/ha from the pre-vious week following 46kg DM/ha/day growth. “This gives us an estimated 21 tonne feed surplus,” say the farm walk

notes on www.siddc.org.nzLUDF’s round was down to 33 days as

a consequence — three days faster than planned, with the first round expected to finish at the end of this week.

“Our plan is to continue using avail-able feed on the platform in the first round, without silage, and if required top up with silage in the second round,” wrote the management team.

Continued growth of 45kgDM/ha/

day or more will mean there’s enough grass to feed the herd pasture only during the second round, they calculate.

In Southland at the start of the month the demonstration farm aver-age cover was 400kg DM/ha ahead of the long-term average but growth-rate, at 20kgDM/ha/day, had slipped behind the norm for the time of year.

andrew swallowandrews@ruralnews�co�nz

NIWA LAST week confirmed what most farmers already suspected: it’s been the warmest winter on record since 1909, based on NIWA’s seven station temperature series.

Nationally, it was 1.2oC warmer than average and in the South Island record-high mean tempera-tures were widespread.

August was a record or near-

record warm one everywhere, with many locations at least 2oC above average.

The exception areas were Northland, Auckland and west-ern Waikato where temperatures were only in the ‘above average’ range, at 0.5 to 1.2oC above. Na-tionally the mean temperature for the month was 1.9°C above aver-age, another record since 1909.

In most areas August was drier than normal too, with less than half the average rain for the month in parts of Southland, Otago and inland Canterbury. Hawkes Bay and Gisborne bucked the trend, with over 150% of average rain.

Wetter weather earlier in the winter left most areas with normal soil moisture levels as of Septem-ber 1.

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news // 7

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Not just world-class, but best in class – Spierings

eVen before the outcome of the operational review was known, independent milk product marketer John Shaskey told Dairy News he believes international customers will “generally see the Fonterra response as a positive indication that irre-spective of the short term costs and damage to reputation, Fon-terra acted quickly at the first signs of a serious problem.”

That action will help ensure the market sees the botulism event as just that, and not a reason to doubt the ongoing integrity within the New Zea-land industry’s quality sys-tems, he says. “Good robust reviews of what went on and transparent disclosure of the learnings will help fur-ther in alleviating any concerns in the market.”

Shaskey warns of a risk of reviews becoming politi-cally driven and of a desire to “throw a few good people off the train” in order to demonstrate accountability for performance.

“The key is to focus on what happened and what changes in business process should occur as a conse-quence. It would be unfortunate if one of the outcomes was that… the people looking for the dangerous bugs didn’t speak out quickly when they found signs of some-thing because they were concerned about becoming one of those good people ‘thrown off the train’.”

Good reviews will alleviate concerns

if fonterra holds its confidence in the next few months it will come out of the food safety scare not only world class, but best in class globally, says Fonterra’s chief executive, Theo Spierings.

“I am convinced we will all come out strong – not only Fonterra but New Zealand will come out stronger. We have to make sure we are a great, strong team – Fonterra and New Zea-land.”

“We need – as a co-op – and New Zealand needs, absolute stability in the coming two, three months. We have to have a lot of confi-dence, not only Fonterra but the entire coun-try of New Zealand, to bring New Zealand up to the level where it should be – not only world class but best in class.”

Spierings was speaking last week at the release of the company’s operational review, commissioned to look at the precautionary whey product recall, what happened, why it happened and what actions should be taken.

“I can assure you with my experience in dairy this is very comprehensive,” says Spier-

ings referring to the action plan. “What you see here is lifting the standard from world class – from what New Zealand and Fonterra is already – to being best practice or best in world because that is our next aim. We will really drive this to the highest possible standard.

“There are a number of innovative actions here which are very uncom-mon in other dairy operations. We are going to lift the bar to the highest pos-sible level.”

New Zealand and Fonterra are world class in dairy, he says. It has effi-cient and world class farms and world class factories.

Darfield has the biggest and most modern drier on the planet.

“We have global reach, we operate in more than 100 countries, we have a strong customer and consumer base, and we run strong and robust quality and food safety systems. We are still the leading player in dairy nutrition around the world.

“We are well placed – no reason for arro-gance – but we have to focus on getting best in class in the field of food safety.”

The season was kicking in and the indus-try had to get into action mode. Conditions are good for farmers, milk is coming in faster than last year and they have had three strong GDP auctions.

John Shaskey


Fonterra says its farms and factories are world class but it wants to lift stnadards higher.


8 // news

Inquiries will test every player, every decision

the Potential for confused communication in food safety issues such as a Fonterra botulism scare will be addressed in the inquiries, says Steven Joyce, Minister for Eco-nomic Development and for Science and Innova-tion.

Joyce agrees food safety issues have big potential for confusion.

“Every decision will

get tested from beginning to end and every player,” Joyce told Dairy News. “It hasn’t been a good expe-rience but out of it may come some clearer under-standings – in the public mind and companies’ and regulators’ minds – as to exactly what happens when.

“As we move further up the value chain with our foodstuffs and into areas that are high value and sensitive, like infant formula and formula for the elderly, having clear

understanding of what happens when is really important.”

Market jitters are dying down with the neg-ative test results for the life-threatening botu-lism in Fonterra’s recalled whey product – but many questions are yet to be answered.

“The uncertainty will fade now that the tests have come back false, which is good for every-body,” Joyce said. “It will provide some instant reas-surance to markets that

there is no food safety issue.

“But there are obvious questions about notifica-tions, timings, research results – all those things have got to be answered. But… in a methodical and proper way, because that’s what our markets and New Zealanders will be expect-ing.”

Asked about his under-standing as to why Fon-terra received a positive result for botulism-caus-ing bacteria clostridium botulinum but the subse-

quent independent test by Minister for Primary Industries did not, he says “it is one of those tricky situations”.

“My understanding of it is – and I’m not a pro-fessional – in that case they identified some early markers, which could have been things (clostridium botulinum) or not.

“The question becomes, ‘when do you go to market and when do you withdraw the prod-uct?’ That’s something every company has to work through.

“One of the things that

will get tested through inquiries is ‘did they go soon enough?’. I don’t think people will say they went too soon, given the information they had, but did they go soon enough, did they do enough tests – all those sorts of things? “There are too many ques-tions for me to start offer-ing an opinion.”

Asked why Fonterra did not appear to have been told of the MPI test results before the ministry went public (August 28), Joyce says “the results went out the day they came though”.


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news // 9

Welfare cases sign of system

an aPParent rash of animal welfare cases in the law courts does not reflect an increase in abuse on farms, says Federated Farmers.

Rather, it is the result of MPI bringing closure to a backlog of cases dating back several years, dairy chairman Willy Leferink told Dairy News.

Ideally, he says, the law should be changed to allow substantial spot fines to be imposed on animal welfare offend-ers, as happens in Europe. Only if the offender refuses to pay the fine would the case go to court.

Feds’ calls for such a change have fallen on stony ground, but MPI has agreed to close the gap between investigations and prosecutions so the whole process is dealt with faster, he says.

“This case was all over the Ashburton Guardian a couple of years ago, and

dealt with, and now here we go again,” he said after hearing of the latest MPI media release. This told how a local dairy farmer (61) pleaded guilty in Ash-burton District Court last week to nine serious animal welfare charges brought against him by MPI.

The offences date back to June 2011 when MAF, as MPI was then, was alerted to serious animal wel-fare concerns at the farm. DairyNZ had been work-ing with the farmer to try to improve conditions on the farm but after seven months and no improve-ment it called in MAF. Ministry inspectors and a veterinarian found about 70% of the herd in poor condition with no feed available. The vet’s opin-ion was that all cows were at least 100kg underweight for the time of year, and given imminent calving, were in an unacceptable condition and distressed state.

Over the next month MAF, vets and a farm con-

sultant visited the farm many times to try to per-suade the farmer to take steps to improve the herd’s condition. But he would not cooperate and the herd’s condition kept deteriorating.

On July 14, 92 of 124 cows on the farm were found in very poor condi-

tion: two were euthana-sed immediately and the farmer ordered to send the remaining 90 to the clos-est slaughterhouse within a week. This was not com-plied with, and the farmer was served with an order pursuant to sections 133 and 134 of the Animal Wel-fare Act enabling MAF to

enforce destocking.“The key message in all

of this is… doing nothing is not an option,” MPI Can-terbury/Westland district compliance manager Peter Hyde told Dairy News.

If the farmer in the Ashburton case had lis-tened to the advice offered by MPI and industry sup-

port groups, the condition of his herd would have undoubtedly improved and the case need never have gone to court, he adds.

“Even when animal welfare inspectors arranged for a vet and an expert farm consultant to provide advice, this was

once again ignored.”Hyde acknowledged

Leferink’s explanation for the rash of welfare cases in the courts.

It has also been a good winter in that MPI hasn’t had any big welfare cases to deal with, It’s been able to clear up cases on the back burner, he added.


entries for the big art contest for rural children are pouring in, headed by a “cool” calf named Boots, from Canterbury.

The annual LIC competition, supported also by Stallion Plastics, encourages rural children aged 5-13 who are rearing calves for Calf Club to paint and draw their pets for worthhile prizes.

Jade Williams’ (9) entry was first in. Her picture of calf Boots, chosen from her mum and dad’s Waimate dairy farm, was named for the white ‘boots’ on its back feet.

The Williams family are getting ready for her school’s Pet Day next month, and Jade entered the art competition to try to win a new cover to keep Boots warm, and a $6000 Stallion calf feeder for her parents. Her picture took “about two days and half an hour” to complete.

LIC communications manager Clare Bayly says she is amazed by the creativity of children entering the contest.

‘Boots’ kicks off kids art competition

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news // 11

A2 mik not affected by botulism scare

A2 BRAND fresh milk is the fastest growing dairy brand in the Australian grocery market, says A2 Corporation in its an-nual report to June 2013.

It estimates the market share of A2 brand milk at 7.4% by value during the last quarter of the financial year. Australia sales were up 48% on the previous year. Overall, A2 Corporation’s group sales increased 51% to $94million for the year ending June 2013.

Net profit after tax was $4.120 million, higher than com-pany and market forecasts, the report says.

A2 brand fresh milk was launched in the UK market in June 2013, and in the same month supplied to the Chinese

distributor. The Australia-New Zealand launch is imminent.

Babidge says the above-ex-pectation trading performance in Australia helped increase funding to set up an a2 brand milk business in the UK.

“The focus in the first half of

the year in the UK was on com-pleting the establishment of the business and launching our brand into the UK retail trade,” the annual report says. “A small team near London manage sales, marketing and health care professional activities. Other support functions are outsourced to our joint venture partner.”

A strong farmer supplier base is yielding commercial

quantities of a2 milk for the UK. A one-off incentive scheme was initiated to support aggrega-tion of a2 herds by a number of farmers by 2014.

The product launch started October 2012 initially with three retailer groups and about 700 retail outlets from January 2013.

full tilt in australia, uK

Praise for Fonterra and the Government’s handling of the false-alarm food safety recall has come from an unexpected quarter – A2 Corporation which is launching its own infant formula brand in China in November.

A2 managing director Geoff Babidge told Dairy News they will not be directly affected by the Fonterra scare and the launch is going ahead as planned – with their infant for-mula brand A2 Platinum on shelves in China in November. It is also being launched in Australia and New Zea-land, and should start appearing on shelves here in early to mid-October.

“Obviously anyone in the industry should be concerned about potential impact on brand New Zealand,” says Babidge. “But we have been satisfied with how all parties have reacted – the company and the Government – in addressing the matter.”

A2 had its people in China immedi-ately following the announcement of the quality issue. “There has been a lot of communication and a responsible position taken by the various parties. We are of the view that it will miti-gate any on-going issues relating to the matter. We are not forecasting any change to their current plans because of the issue.”

The first A2 Platinum left New Zealand in June and is completing the processes through Chinese authori-

ties and working its way through the supply chain.

A2 Corporation appointed State Farm Holding Shanghai Company (CSF) in late 2012 as the exclusive distributor of A2 infant formula in Greater China with a joint marketing structure. A marketing committee is comprised of A2 and CSF representa-tives, with Babidge as chair.

A2 has a strategic supply agree-ment with Synlait Milk, with 12 accredited farmers in Canterbury supplying A2 milk for infant formula. Support for A2 milk in Canterbury is strong and building, says Babidge, with more farmers wanting to sign up.

The company has established a new management team with expe-rience in infant formula marketing, quality processes and supply chain and appointed an in-market manager located in Shanghai. This team will

also develop further growth oppor-tunities such as UHT milk and, in time, infant formula products in other Asian markets. “We are putting some new effort into identifying opportuni-ties particularly for UHT and subse-quently yoghurt. We see UHT as being very complementary in taking infant formula into China,” says Babidge.

In New Zealand A2 Platinum will be launched nationally. They are look-ing to broaden an initial arrangement with Foodstuffs.

For fresh milk in New Zealand, Babidge says they are continuing dis-cussions through the year with the non-exclusive licensee for fresh milk in New Zealand – Fresha Valley. “We are continuing our discussions on whether there is a way for us to get more involved and participate with them in the sale of fresh milk in New Zealand.”


A2 managing director Geoff Babidge with Xu Jun, chairman of China State Farm Holding Shanghai Company (CSF), A2’s distributor in China.

Infant formula brand A2 Platinum will be on shelves in China in November.

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Payout up across the board

westland and Synlait have fol-lowed Fonterra’s lead and raised their forecasts for this season’s payout.

Canterbury-based Synlait Milk last week hiked its predicted milk price to $8/kgMS and lifted its advance 50c to $5/kgMS.

Managing director John Penno said higher than forecast revenue from high commodity prices and extra process-ing volume made the firm confident of achieving earnings targets for the year to July 2014 at the increased milk price.

Some of that extra volume will come from Fonterra in the form of DIRA milk, Synlait Milk having announced August 30 that it would take a “significant allo-cation” under Dairy Industry Restruc-turing Act rules.

Synlait says it needs the DIRA milk because further planning and a small investment in plant and equipment has created opportunity to increase pro-duction of ingredient products without impacting infant formula or nutritional product business.

Asked by Dairy News if there were other drivers for the uptake of DIRA milk, such as a drop in farm supply, it said there weren’t. Intake will now be at least the 46.4 million kgMS indicated in its Initial Public Offering pro-spectus ahead of its par-tial listing on the New Zealand Stock Exchange in July.

As for the transport charge dispute with the Oceania group of suppli-ers in South Canterbury (Dairy News, July 23), that remains as detailed in the risks section of the prospectus. That said a new price formula and distance surcharge introduced to certain sup-pliers whose contracts were novated to Synlait from Oceania Dairy Limited was regarded by some of those suppli-ers as a breach of contract. Synlait said it believes it is entitled to introduce the distance surcharge but the matter “may ultimately need to be determined by a court.”

Westland, which took DIRA milk for the first time last season, told Dairy

News it has budgeted on taking 36 million

litres this season but “at this early stage” it could still take the full 50 mil-lion litres if share-

backed supply dropped.

“DIRA is only available for the next two sea-sons so we will phase it out and

replace it with share backed milk,” says chief execu-tive Rod Quin.

Westland revised its payout forecast for the current season shortly after Fon-terra’s August 27 announcement (see sidebar), and before Synlait’s, adding $1 to make its range prediction $7.60-8.00/kgMS, with the advance also increased to $5/kgMS.

All three firms compete for supply in Central Canterbury.

Quin says firm international prices, no backlash to the botulism scare, supply already 5% ahead of budget, and Westland’s strategic move into higher

value nutritionals are behind the “con-fident pay-out forecast.”

“We’ve had a successful launch of our new Westpro Nutrition products in China recently, and fully expect the new nutritional products plant in Hokitika to be working to capacity this season. All this is good news for our shareholders and the local economies.”

The NZ dollar dropping a few cents had also helped support the higher payout.

Westland says it has at least 300 shareholders on the West Coast and, in

its third season of taking milk over the Southern Alps to Hokitika, 34 in Can-terbury.

A business case on whether to build a processing plant at Rolleston, which it has consents for, is still being prepared, says Quin.

“Any investment in Rolleston or Hokitika will be announced to share-holders when approved by the board,” he said. “Right now the Hokitika site is preparing for the new 30 megawatt boiler build which will be commis-sioned September 2014.


FONTERRA ANNOUNCED a 30c increase in its farmgate milk price forecast for 2013-14 on August 27, taking it to $7.80/kgMS with esti-mated dividend unchanged at 32 cents/share.

Chairman John Wilson said the higher forecast reflected continuing strong international prices and market views that commodity prices will remain at historically high levels longer than previously predicted.

Substantial volumes of product have been sold on recent Global-DairyTrade auctions, with prices holding, but remaining uncertainties mean no change to the current advance of $5.50/kgMS as announced July 30.

Fonterra will announce its result for 2013 on September 25.

fonterra adds 30c/KgMs

John Penno

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news // 13

Craig McBeth

Milk starts to flowMilK flows nation-wide are mostly up on last year, but dairy industry managers are not forecast-ing a record season.

Craig McBeth, DairyNZ, says the regions’ milk flow increases are ranging from zero to 10% on last year. But forecast percentage increases are based on very small actual volume increases.

“By February your season-to-date figure becomes more endur-ing… [relative to] to a pre-vious year’s production at the same of year. But so far such a small amount of production has been sent to the factory that any increase can show up as a high percentage increase.

“It’s not necessarily

going to result in that good start carrying on for the rest of the season, so there is still a lot of uncertainty where it will end up.”

McBeth says South-land has been slow getting going, probably because of later calving there. “Some cows have come back lighter from grazing because winter crops [suf-fered because of the dry autumn].

“They also had a couple of snow events making it harder to get feed into the cows, so that’s proba-bly impacting early season production. Northland on a daily basis is doing well but on a season-to-date basis is not as a strong as might have been expected.”

Fonterra says overall the milk flow is about 4% up for the month to date, but 1% up on the season

Peter burKepeterb@ruralnews�co�nz

to date. Much depends on how

calving has gone, McBeth says. “The good story is farmers have plenty of feed growing and there’s been a great bounce back. They are feeding home grown feed more than is usual for this time of the year… saving money by

reducing the use of sup-plements. These can now be available for other times of the season when they’ll generate more response. Resulting sav-ings can be used to repay short term debt incurred in the [summer] drought.”

McBeth says the mild winter has helped pasture

covers to respond and cow condition to rebuild.

“A lot of cull cows ended up in the freezing works earlier than normal so when the grass started to grow there were fewer mouths to feed and that helped the recovery.”


Great start but still early daysa Mild winter has got milk flows 5-6% ahead of budget at Westland Milk Products

Chief executive Ron Quin told Dairy News that while the season is growing and up on budget “it’s early days yet”.

“There is always a danger of looking at the start of the season and expecting the weather conditions will be as mild as and as conducive to pasture growth as through early spring. So… a note of caution, but at this stage it’s a great start.”

Quin says the impacts of the drought on pasture and cow con-dition are largely over, but the financial impact of lost milk pro-duction and the extra feed required during the drought are still being felt.

“So on the surface it looks like they have moved through the problems of the past and they recognise the future is looking a lot better, but there are still constraints and overdrafts that will cause concern for some during the next few months.”

The mild winter has meant West Coast farmers haven’t had to feed out silage and some farmers now have the luxury of this as a backstop in case the weather turns.

“Our forecast payout is $7.60 to $8.00 and we have sig-naled we see the market holding reasonably firm for the season based on the lack of global supply of milk. But I… caution these prices and the exchange rate can be volatile.”

Miraka, Taupo, says milk flow has been up 10% for August. Chief executive Richard Wyeth says the amaz-ing autumn and a mild winter has caused grass growth to exceed expectations.

“We are looking strong at this stage, but we expect that tens figure to drop back to single figures in September and October.”

Wyeth says the challenge for many farmers in the region and elsewhere is managing their pastures so that the quality of the grass doesn’t deteriorate.

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as if spring wasn’t busy enough on dairy farms, the annual bombardment of ballot papers looms as Fonterra, DairyNZ and others get elections under-way.

Aspiring Fonterra directors or shareholder councillors have until noon this Friday to get

nominations in. One of the three direc-

tors’ seats will feature a new face because of Henry van der Heyden’s retire-ment from the board ear-lier this year.

In previous years such a vacancy has prompted a spike in nominations. Whether that happens

this year will become clear on October 1 when Elec-tionz releases candidate names, following comple-tion of the optional can-didate assessment panel process. Candidates may choose to withdraw their nomination following that process.

Electionz said it

Election season in full swingcouldn’t comment on whether current Fonterra directors Malcolm Bailey and Ian Farrelly, retiring by rotation and eligible for re-election, would be seek-ing re-election.

Two positions on Fon-terra’s directors’ remuner-ation committee are also up for election – one on the Fonterra Farmer Cus-todian Trust, and 14 on the Shareholders Council.

For the directors’ remuneration committee, Scott Montgomery and Gerard Wolvers are retir-ing by rotation and are eli-gible for re-election, as is Fonterra farmer custodian trustee Paul Todd.

The 14 Shareholders Council ward elections include three new posi-tions, in Wards 31, 32 and 33, to better represent the distribution of herds. These new ward posi-tions will be for one year (as opposed to three), pending the outcome of a complete ward bound-ary review and appropriate amendments to existing wards for the 2014 elec-tion cycle.

For all Fonterra’s elec-tions a single transferable vote system is used with voting by internet, fax and post. Nomination papers and candidate handbooks are available from Elec-tionz: tel 0508 666 446; e-mail [email protected].

Meanwhile nomina-tions for DairyNZ’s board are in, with four candi-dates vying for two posi-tions.

Two directors are retir-ing by rotation and stand-ing for re-election: Alister Body (Ashburton) and Barabara Kuriger (New Plymouth). They are up against candidates Kevin Ferris (Te Awamutu) and

Tom Walters (Te Puke).Levy payers get voter

packs this month and all votes – internet, fax or postal – must be received by noon October 16. Votes are weighted by milksolids produced in 2012/13.

Meanwhile DairyNZ has appointed two dairy farmers as associate directors, a new position designed to build gover-nance skills in the sector.

Elaine Cook and Grant Wills will each sit for six-month consecutive terms in the non-voting position, Cook from September to February, and Wills from March to August.

“We wanted to give aspiring directors the chance to build experi-ence and confidence, learn from others and ensure we have a pipeline of people available for boards,” says DairyNZ chair John Luxton. “We had a great response… 30 people applying. It was hearten-ing to see the talent that came forward.”

Luxton says Cook and Wills will be great addi-tions to the board of eight. “They are both award-win-ning farmers who have already served in gover-nance roles in the sector and in their communities.”

Cook is a Waikato busi-ness coach, Southland dairy farm owner and a director of the South-land Demonstration Farm. She and her late husband Wayne won NZ Share-milker of the Year in 2006.

Wills is a Waikato dairy farmer and Fonterra Shareholders’ Councillor. He was supreme winner of the Ballance Farm Envi-ronment Awards in 2013 and is a former Piako Sharemilker of the Year winner and Dairy Farmer of the Year finalist.

Malcolm Bailey Ian Farrelly

in brief

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Chief executive theo spierings says its management decided there is no risk to Fonterra staff and that the situation has stabilised.

the co-op suspended operations to protect its people and shareholders’ assets, spierings says. “I am now confident our people are safe and the business is ready to resume operations.”

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Fertiliser losses seen at a glancea new tool from Ballance Agri-Nutrients will soon enable farm-ers to discover which paddocks are losing nutrients and what to do about it.

The tool is MitAgator, a com-puter programme that pro-duces maps showing which areas are at risk of high N and P loss. It is the product of research by Ballance Agri-Nutrients and AgResearch, co-funded by the Govern-ment’s Primary Growth Part-nership (PGP).

User testing and valida-tion is now underway for the “preci-sion decision” model, which will tell how to reduce nutrient losses while getting the best response from fer-tiliser, says Ballance’s R&D manager, Warwick Catto.

MitAgator takes data from Over-seer files and links this with a geo-referenced farm map, a soil map and a digital elevation model.

Catto says about 80% of nutrient losses are from 20% of farmland.

“It is far more cost effective to direct mitigation and management to the key areas, rather than work across the whole farm. That’s why

Ballance has focused on developing a preci-sion model that works in conjunction with Overseer and uses other data on soil and topography to give an objective result. It will help farmers to mini-mise losses while get-

ting better use efficiency from their phosphate (P) and nitrogen (N) fer-tiliser.

“MitAgator generates maps showing the areas that are at high risk of N and P loss, as well as sedi-ment and bacteria losses to the envi-ronment. Once the base risk maps are developed, mitigation and man-agement strategies can be modelled,

and can be targeted to an individual paddock, or even part of it.”

The modelling selects from a range of possible mitigation options by cost and effectiveness, and the technology allows for mitigation options to be applied to the map, such as fencing off a wetland.

“What we’ve got now is a proto-type model which will map where nutrient, sediment and e-coli losses are occurring,” says Catto. “This has great potential benefit in helping farmers to continue farming within nutrient-restricted catchments.

“The next step is to integrate Mit-Agator with other data sources to create a model which enables real-time risk management. For example, a farmer could then use MitAgator to access soil moisture data and fore-cast rainfall before deciding whether to graze stock or irrigate effluent.

“This is part of the vision for the Ag-Hub farm management informa-tion website Ballance owns.”

Warwick Catto

Rural Women members want your votesa record number of 14 Rural Women NZ (RWNZ) members are standing in local government elections. Three are unop-posed.

RWNZ says they are motivated by the need for councils and district health boards to better understand the challenges facing rural communities.

Rural rates are the hottest issue for many candidates, especially because they see farmers paying a disproportionate share of rates.

Sharyn Price, a Kauru Hill RW candi-date in Corriedale, Waitaki District Coun-cil, says rates fairness and value for money are essential.

“Rural ratepayers have seen much larger percentage increases in rates than the coun-cil’s averages, thanks to farm development increasing capital values, while town values fail to keep pace. Paying ever more for a shrinking share of services is not reason-able.”

Associate RWNZ member Geoff Evans, a councillor in Wairau/Awatere, Marlborough District Council, agrees. He says in his first term of office he was distressed by huge property revaluation-driven rate increases. “Over 40% for some rural people…. individ-uals cannot afford increases of this magni-tude.”

Transport and roading are also an issue. Selwyn mayoral candidate Olive Webb says rural roads are fast and deadly if not well maintained. “The intensification of land use means hundreds of milk tankers, log-ging trucks and more cars are thrashing the roads.”

Middlemarch RW member Kate Wilson, standing again for Mosgiel/Taieri, says cer-tainty of water management in the next 10 years is a priority facing Dunedin City Coun-cil.

Getting the silent majority excited and engaged in these elections is vital, says first time candidate for the Waikato District Council, Jacqui Church, a member of One-whero RWNZ. Her ward stretches from south of Auckland to the Waikato River.

“Have we women, and particularly our younger women, forgotten how we fought and won the vote? How we were the first women in the world to vote? This is a pre-cious gift to honour.”

For women standing for DHBs, prime rural concerns include access to healthcare and retention of services.

Top of the South RW national councillor Pam Thomlinson is standing for the Nelson/Marlborough District Health Board. She would like to see elderly rural people get the same access to in-home services as urban people do, meaning travel for carers must be paid at realistic rates.

Ainsley Webb, chair of the Central Otago Health Inc board that runs Dunstan Hospital at Clyde, says inequitable funding for rural areas and the inability of townie administra-tors to understand problems facing the rural sector – including isolation and distance to services – are the top challenges. Unop-posed, she will serve a fourth term. This year the board bought a CT scanner for the hos-pital, paid for by the community.

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Rural News 17x3 Dairy News

Notice is hereby given that the following four elections will be held concurrently in 2013 for Fonterra Co-operative Group Limited.

Board of Directors: Election of Three (3) Directors

Shareholders’ Council (14 Wards): Election of One (1) Councillor in Wards 3, 6, 8, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27 and 30, an extra Councillor in Wards 31 and 32 and Two (2) Councillors in Ward 33

Directors’ Remuneration Committee: Election of Two (2) Members

Fonterra Farmer Custodian Trust: Election of One (1) Farmer Custodian Trustee

Invitation for Candidate NominationsNominations are called for candidates to stand for these four elections. Fonterra shareholders are eligible to stand for all four elections. Nomination forms and candidate handbooks can be obtained from the Returning Officer.

Nominations must be received by the Returning Officer by 12 noon on Friday, 13 September 2013.

Elections for Shareholders’ CouncillorsTo ensure a more accurate representation of Shareholders (based on the number of farms and Milk Solids produced) an extra Shareholders’ Councillor will be added to Wards 31, 32 and 33.

These terms will be for one year by which time a complete ward boundary review will have taken place and appropriate amendments to existing wards implemented in time for the 2014 election cycle.

In the case of Ward 33 where there will be two vacancies (one due to retirement by rotation and one via an extra position) both terms will be for one year. The term for Ward 8 will be two years.

Further details on this will follow in the coming weeks.

Elections will be held in the following 14 Wards for the Shareholders’ Council:

Ward 3 Northern Wairoa Ward 6 Hauraki

Ward 8 Hamilton Ward 9 Morrinsville

Ward 12 Cambridge Ward 15 South Waikato

Ward 18 Otorohanga Ward 21 Coastal Taranaki

Ward 24 Southern Taranaki Ward 27 Southern Manawatu

Ward 30 Northern/Central Canterbury Ward 31 Mid Canterbury

Ward 32 Southern Canterbury Ward 33 Otago

Warwick Lampp, electionz.com has been appointed as the Returning Officer for the 2013 Fonterra Elections.

For further details, call the Election Hotline on free phone 0508 666 446 or contact the Returning Officer at [email protected].

Warwick Lampp

Returning Officer – 2013 Fonterra Elections

Email:[email protected]

Election Hotline: Free Phone 0508 666 446

Notice of ElectionsFonterra Co-operative Group LimitedBoard of Directors, Shareholders’ Council, Directors’ Remuneration Committee and Fonterra Farmer Custodian Trust


news // 17

Food safety behind $220m plant

in brief

anz business tourA GrOUp of Kiwi food and beverage processors just home from a 10-day ANZ tour to China have new insights, links with potential partners and new business leads.

the 20 businesses, including dairy producers, visited Hong Kong, Guangzhou and shanghai. they met prospective buyers, customers and business partners, and attended workshops organised by ANZ, with representatives of NZ trade and enterprise, KpmG, redfern Associ-ates, tNs and pwC.

A highlight was the Hong Kong Food expo, where 11,000 food and beverage exhibitors from around the world showed products to 400,000 visitors.

“the goal was to give customers a better understanding of how to do business in Hong Kong and China and connect them with ANZ’s on-the-ground networks to help them expand their business into these markets,” says Graham turley, managing director commercial & agri for ANZ bank NZ.

concerns about food safety in parts of the China market under-lie a plan by the Chinese infant formula maker Yas-hili to build a $220m plant at Pokeno, just south of Auckland.

The company explained this to an inde-pendent commissioner, Michael Savage, appointed by the Waikato District Council, which late August granted consent for the plant. The consent is sub-ject to a 15-day appeal period which finishes early this week.

Yashili NZ Dairy Co is a wholly owned subsid-iary of a Hong Kong listed

company Yashili Inter-national. China Mengnui Dairy, of which the Chi-nese Government is the biggest shareholder, cur-rently has a deal to buy a majority stake in Yas-hili International – worth about $2billion – as part of a plan to expand its milk powder business.

Yashili is ranked about eighth in the China milk formula market and China Daily says the acquisi-tion would be the largest single deal in the Chinese domestic dairy industry. It is expected to lead to fur-ther integration in China’s milk powder business, the newspaper reports.

General manager of Yashili NZ, Yingx-iang Zhao, told the hear-ing for the Pokeno infant


formula plant that Yas-hili International is based in the Guangdong Prov-ince in China and it has plants there, and in two other locations in China.

Established in 1983, Yashili has since 1998 focused on making infant milk formula and nutri-tional foods products. Its infant formula brands

are Scient and Yashili. It has a research and prod-uct development centre in China employing 32 sci-entists.

Yashili International is experiencing strong con-sumer demand for safe nutritional products for infants and young chil-dren, Zhao told the com-missioner.

This demand, and con-cerns about food safety in some parts of the China market, has lead the com-pany to decide to establish a manufacturing opera-tion in a suitable offshore location, Savage says in his report.

Yashili already sources milk powder from New Zealand and first imported New Zealand products to China 10 years ago. The premium end of Yashi-li’s product line has been based on New Zealand ingredients since 2010.

The Pokeno plant will employ 120 people and the company is in discussion with potential partners and suppliers to source about 60 million litres of local milk each year and about 6000 MT of whey

protein concentrate from New Zealand suppliers. Zhao told the hearings that Yashili was committed to being a good corporate cit-izen in New Zealand. Its brand reputation is a valu-able asset which is does not want tarnished.

About five staff will be brought from China who will be specialists in product formulation and import/export regulations. The rest are expected to be locals, including 75 staff on shifts 24/7.

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18 // news

Can we feed our cows better?

concern is being expressed in the dairy

sector about a lack of research into improving the nutrition of cows. If more research was done globally and nationally into dairy heifer and cow

nutrition, milk production from the existing national herd would be much greater.

The former chief exec-utive of Landcorp, Chris

Kelly, recently pointed out that New Zealand cows exported to China and fed better produce at least double the amount of milk.

Also concerned is Massey Univer-sity’s Dr Jean Mar-gerison, expert in animal nutrition and lactation. She

says in recent years much less funding for science – in New Zealand and glob-ally – has gone into animal nutrition, whereas animal genetics have had ground breaking technological advances.

The advent of genome mapping and subsequent developments have made this less expensive, and science funders have largely ignored investing in nutrition research, she says.

“In New Zealand, farm-ers have been increas-ing the genetic merit of their herds, and BW and PW gains have been con-sistently improving the national herd by an aver-age of 12.5 points per year. A lot of that has been driven by people selecting cows that are more pro-ductive and then feeding these cows more supple-ments.”

Margerison says it’s important to select cows that best suit their par-ticular farming system or the farmer’s resources and skills.

Much of the change taking place is driven by milk price, and more regu-lar droughts in traditional milk producing areas. When prices are high, more supplements fed and when milk prices are lower the cows are effectively put out to pasture.

“Farmers change genet-ics or buy cows that have better genetics and breed cows that have better genetics in order to have animals that are more responsive when they are fed more nutrients.

When the ‘genetic merit’ goes up the amount of nutrients a cow appor-tions to milk yielding increases: that’s what a major part of genetic merit describes.”

However Margerison points out that regardless of their genetic makeup some cows perform better in different systems. For example, some cows may

be suited to a system-one regime, others to system five or even once-a-day milking.

Longer term we have to change the genetic merits of the cow to suit the system, and change the feeding to suit the genetic makeup of the cow, oth-erwise it’s inefficient, she says.

“I once heard a geneticist at a dairy conference [draw an analogy] which I thought was very sensible: ‘are you, say… driving a [four-wheel-drive] or a sports car?’ They are quite different and so are cows within a breed type. You could say the sports-car cow is top of the range and can feed as a system-five cow, whereas at the other end of the scale the 4WD could arguably be a system-one cow that essentially gets fed on pasture.”

Margerison says farm-ers should focus on springer cows to mini-mise metabolic disorders – especially milk fever – and cows in early lactation.

That’s when a cow is most responsive and how it’s managed in this period dictates how much milk it’ll produce during the rest if it’s in lactation and this is when it needs to get pregnant.

“Looking at the actual lactation cycle of the cow – the lactation curve as we call it – means that early lactation management feeding is really important for the rest of lactation.

“It’s also important for reproduction and if you don’t get your cows preg-nant, in whichever system you are in, it’s not cost effective so we have to sometime focus on short term goals and feeding strategies to keep the cow healthy and get the cow pregnant – that’s a big pri-ority.”


Jean Margerison


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news // 19

Miraka eyes Asian business deals

wyeth gains PM scholarshiP

RICHARD WYETH has won a Prime Minister’s scholarship. He’s one of ten “of the brightest busi-ness minds” in the country to win a scholarship to study at a world-leading business school.

He will do a four-week ad-vanced management course next March at the INSEAD Internation-al Business School, Singapore.

Miraka nominated Wyeth for the scholarship, awarded via a se-

lection process. “There were a

number internation-al business schools all around the world, but I wanted to do an international course because we are an export focused business. I thought Singapore would offer me the best opportunity to build

relationships with other business executives.

“We do most of our business through Asia so I thought Singapore was the right place to do that as opposed to London or Europe.”

Wyeth, who has a BComm and BA, says it’s

a long time since he’s done any other formal training.

the chief executive of Miraka, the Taupo Maori dairy processor, is in Asia this week following up on business deals the company has there.

Richard Wyeth will initially go to Vietnam to meet with the senior exec-utives of the local dairy company Vina-milk, a shareholder in Miraka.

“This is part of an annual trip I do to catch up with Vinamilk to see how their business is tracking and see if there is

anything we can do from a New Zealand perspective to help provide them with product. It’s to explore other opportu-nities they may be aware of because they are right in the market, and to see if we can fill the gap with product from New Zealand.”

Wyeth will also visit China for talks with executives from Shanghai Pengxin. Miraka has a joint venture with Shang-hai Pengxin to produce UHT milk from farms the Chinese company owns here.

“There is still quite an opportunity to build on the UHT deal we’ve signed with them and they want to grow the

volume. So we are working with Shang-hai Pengxin to see what we can do with them in China.

“I will also be talking to other whole milk powder customers in China.”

Wyeth says the Fonterra botulism scare has created problems and added costs for Miraka. They have had to do additional product testing.

“That’s led to delays in getting some products through the borders in China, but most of that is worked through now and I’d like to think in the next two to four weeks it should be business as usual,” he says.


Richard Wyeth

Miraka’s Taupo plant.

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20 // news

Where would they go but New Zealandthe entrePre-neurial spirit of its researchers and their closeness to customers – in particular dairy farm-ers – is why Bayer is keen on doing R&D in New Zea-land.

The “can-do” attitude is one of the reasons the German global animal health giant spends $10 million in R&D in New Zealand, with dairy an important part, says Bay-er’s head of global animal health development Dr Douglas Hutchens.

Bayer’s Centre for Innovation and Devel-opment (CID) has just opened a new research facility at its North Shore, Auckland, site. This replaces a smaller labora-tory at its Manukau pro-

duction site. The new, larger facility will make veterinary medicines more effective as it devel-ops new formulations for the local market and region.

Bayer’s CID head Wayne Leech says dairy is a big species for them with key development areas in mastitis and reproduction.

“We are doing a lot of dairy innovation in New Zealand that goes out to other countries,” Leech told Dairy News. “We have at least three projects now that have gone on to become global projects.” They have gone back to Germany now, and are in development stages for worldwide launch.

Hutchens says one of the keys for Leech and his group of 35 specialists in New Zealand is “this entrepreneurial spirit on how to solve problems and

really get close to the cus-tomers”.

“Why do we invest

here? What is so special about New Zealand? It isn’t close to Germany.”

He says this former group of researchers and inno-vators from Bomac (pur-

chased by Bayer in 2011) and the New Zealand people in general “really

have a can-do attitude and an entrepreneurial spirit”.

“In drug develop-


Bayer’s head of CID, Wayne Leech (left), ANZ chief executive Dr Jackie Applegate, head of global animal health development Dr Douglas Hutchens and Science Minister Steven Joyce.

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news // 21

Where would they go but New Zealandment we have lots of fail-ures and few successes; it is easy to say ‘no’. But the people here usually find a way to say ‘yes’, and find a solution to a problem that helps our animals and cus-tomers.

“Through this group Bayer is much closer to the customers. Where would you go if you wanted to do a dairy study or wanted to get the insight from cus-tomers for dairy? You have way more animals than people,” Hutchens joked. Being so close to cus-tomers was “a bit unique around the globe”.

Leech heads a team of 35 specialists, all Kiwis, including veterinarians, pharmacists, pharmacolo-gists and analytical chem-ists. They collaborate closely with universities. “We are pushing them into our areas of research. They come up with the aca-demic ways to solve prob-lems, we apply it to our industry.”

Hutchens says the group is already expert in applied research. Their ability to collaborate with world-class universities in New Zealand enables them to solve industry problems and leverage that globally. Bayer was keen to invest because of those capabilities here.

“Having people imbed-ded in university helps idea generation. A signif-icant amount of money is with contract research organisations in New Zea-land to evaluate efficacy and safety of new prod-ucts.”

Minister for Science and Innovation Steven Joyce, who holds a zool-ogy degree, says Bay-er’s new research facility opening was in line with the Government’s busi-ness growth agency. He believed the Bayer remarks about how New Zealanders innovate were “spot on”.

“We have people who

can cross discipline, think how they could solve a problem – work out how we can make it practical for people.

“I have lost count of people from America, Europe and other parts of the world through this job saying it is amazing what we do with such a

small group of people. We need to hang on to that and develop our skills base here.”

cross-industry exPertise MaKes a difference

BAYER HAS appointed a new New Zealand managing director, Dr Holger Detje, who heads Bayer’s New Zealand agriculture business, known as Bayer CropScience, a role in which he will continue to perform.

Detje succeeds outgoing Bayer New Zealand managing director Patricia Castle who will continue to head the company’s New Zealand finance and administration department. The change is part of a move to rotate the manag-ing director role between members of Bayer New Zealand’s senior leadership team.

Originally from Germany, Detje is well aware of the power of business to drive economies. An agricultural scientist, he has worked in several international marketing and senior management roles throughout the world.

At the end of 2010 Detje took over the posi-tion as country manager for Bayer CropScience in New Zealand. He also represents Bayer as a board member of Agcarm, the industry as-sociation for crop protection and animal health businesses.

“We’re in a unique position as an interna-tional company because we simultaneously work in the areas of pharmaceuticals, agricul-ture and animal health. Plus we have a Mate-rialScience sub group focused on high-tech materials,” says Detje.

“With New Zealand being an agriculture based economy, our operations are particularly important for New Zealand, but New Zealand is also important to Bayer.”

Detje points to Bayer’s multi-million dollar investment in its New Zealand animal health business and the creation of the Auckland Cen-tre for Innovation and Development.

“With the centre we’re able to develop new animal health medicines here locally, for the New Zealand market and for export.”

Detje is a dual Australian-German citizen and is married with three children.

Science Minister Steven Joyce and Wayne Leech, head of the Centre for Innovation and Development, at the new laboratory on Auckland’s North Shore.


22 // news

FRee MILK for school stu-dents has now been extended to Manawatu and Wanganui.

About 100 schools in the region with primary-aged children (years 1 – 6) have signed for milk each school day by the end of term three.

Fonterra director of social responsibility and sus-tainability, Carly Robinson, affirms the momentum. “We are proud to work with and have the support of schools in the Manawatu and Wanganui to bring Fonterra Milk for Schools.”

One of the first schools, Riverdale School, hosted 26 children from 12 schools in the region for a morning of Fonterra Milk for Schools themed activities.

Riverdale School principal, Debra Peck, says the children enjoyed a tour of one of Fonterra’s farmer shareholders farms to learn about where their milk comes from, did riparian planting, and took a trip to Fonterra’s R&D centre.

“Signing up for Fonterra Milk for Schools [means]… we now have 360 students… in the programme.”

The scheme will soon open in Hawke’s Bay. It is expected to be complete nationally by the end of term one 2014. About 750 schools are now signed up.

Free milk flows into Manawatu

• Darfield’s Drier Two is the world’s largest milk powder drier.

• The drier has the capacity to produce up to 30 metric tonnes of whole milk powder per hour, and 700 metric tonnes per day.

• Drier Two produced 100 metric tonnes of whole milk powder during its first produc-tion run.

• 1500 staff and contractors worked 700,000 man hours to deliver this world class milk processing facility.

• Milk is collected from Fonterra’s farmer shareholders up to 65km distant, trucked to Darfield, then processed into whole milk powder and packed into 25kg bags.

daRFIeLd’s Key Facts

Fonterra has invested $500 million in Darfield over the last three years.

World’s largest milk powder drier start-uptHe wORLd’s larg-est milk powder drier, at Fonterra’s Darfield site in Canterbury, started pro-duction last month.

Whole milk powder made at the plant will be exported to 20 markets including the Middle East,

China and Southeast Asia. Fonterra’s director

logistics network, Robert Spurway, says at the peak of the season, the drier will run 24/7. It will produce at least 700 metric tonnes – the equivalent of 45 ship-ping containers – each day.

“The demand for dairy nutrition around the world, especially for whole milk powder, is still strong. Drier Two will ensure Fon-terra has the capacity to meet this demand and to process ongoing milk growth in Canterbury, the fastest growing dairy region in New Zealand.

“The new drier will help the cooperative meet the growing demand for dairy nutrition globally and will play an important role in Fonterra’s strategy to opti-mise its New Zealand milk business.

“With Drier Two now

online at Darfield we are taking fresh milk from farms up to 65km from the site, and have successfully completed our first pro-duction run of whole milk powder.”

The drier’s first pro-duction run marked the completion of Fonterra’s $500 million dollar devel-opment of its Darfield site over the past three years.

“Seeing the second drier up and running after Drier One’s successful first season of operation is tes-tament to the co-op’s man-ufacturing capabilities,” Spurway says.

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as wIdeLy reported, the combination of lower milk prices, higher input prices and adverse sea-sonal conditions meant that the total production volume for 2012-13 fin-ished down 2.9% on the prior season.

Lower total production cut milk supplies to manufacturers, but with healthy – albeit relatively low – growth in dairy production and consumption outstripping domestic requirements, the industry still relies on export growth to drive farmgate returns. We collate our figures on the prior season, as the data comes available, including estimates of how milk was utilised.

A first glance at the export figures might suggest no truly significant year-on-year shift. This is not unexpected, given generally stable, established product mixes and relationships in export markets. So, the 2012-13 figures reveal export volumes were up, about 5% to 800,000 tonnes and export value was marginally down (0.1%) to A$2.756 billion. Higher cheese volumes and the higher Australian dollar were primary drivers of these data.

Overall the pattern depicting the value of Aus-tralian exports by desti-nation region in 2012-13 confirms that the indus-try’s returns are linked to Asia. Close to 75% of the total value has gone to Asia over the last three

years, up from 65% in the early 2000s. Exports to Europe and the Americas has declined over the same period.

The share of total value going to South East Asia and Japan has remained stable dor ten years at about 30% and 20% respectively.

A more recent trend is the growth in the share going to ‘Other Asia’ (including 10 Asian coun-tries outside SE Asia and Japan): this was 15-18% for

much of the 2000s, but has been 25-27% over the last three years.

The 2012-13 figures pro-vide evidence of a notable year-on-year shift: in 2012-13, though Japan remained the top export destina-tion by value, Greater China (China, Hong Kong and Macau) became the top export destination by volume. This was due largely to the year-on-year growth specifically in China-bound exports of fluid milk and whole milk powder (WMP).

OECD-FAO forecasts are for Chinese consump-tion to grow 38% by 2022, plus China is facing seri-ous challenges in growing dairy supply domestically. Its domestic production for the first half of 2013 reflects this—reportedly already 5-10% down.


24 // wORLd

LIsted aUstRaLIan dairy pro-cessor Warrnambool Cheese and Butter maintained sales in the last finan-cial year but its profit fell by 50%.

Total revenue was $A496.5 million, much as last year, but after-tax net oper-ating profit fell 50.7% to $A7.5 million.

Chairman Frank Davis said the 2012-13 financial year had been “difficult and disappointing”. He attributed the lost profit to a persistently high Australian dollar and high raw milk cost relative to market conditions.

“However WCB has [set out to main-tain] its long term revenue base and [underpin overseas] commodity reve-nues. A late surge in international powder prices and the depreciation of the Aus-tralian dollar was insufficient to wholly compensate for the depressed trading

conditions and outcomes in most of FY2013.”

WCB’s balance sheet remains strong and gearing at 31.8% is well within policy range, Davis says.

Working capital debt increased tem-porarily as WCB took advantage of the improved powder prices and lower exchange rates late in the year.

At the same time Warrnambool’s situ-ation improved slightly with an uptick in international powder prices and a depre-ciating Australian dollar.

The company expects prices to help profits for 2014. A weakening Aussie dollar has expanded margins, and Warrnambool continues improvements.

The directors have declared a fully franked final dividend of A11 cents per ordinary share, payable on September 27.

WCB profit falls

The Australian dairy industry still relies on export growth to drive farmgate returns.

Glen Fisher

Chinese appetite growing for Oz milkGLen FIsHeR

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wORLd // 25

Badger shoot divides UKtHOUsands OF badgers are being shot in Britain in a trial to tackle bovine TB. Culling has begun in Gloucestershire, Somerset and Dorset.

The National Farmers Union is backing the shoot, but anti-cull protesters plan disruption.

A High Court judge last month has granted the NFU and other claimants an interim injunction to protect farmers in and around

the pilot cull areas from unlawful actions by cull opponents.

NFU president Peter Kend-all welcomed the decision. “This injunction is to stop people intent on harassment and threats against farmers and landowners in Gloucestershire, Somerset and Dorset.

“For beef and dairy farmers dealing with TB on their farms, these badger culls are an essential

part in the fight…. While we recognise not everyone agrees with the government’s TB eradication policy, and the need to cull badgers to start to reduce this disease in cattle, we acknowledge their legitimate right to peaceful protests.

“But we cannot condone actions by extreme activists designed to harass, intimidate and threaten others.”

Kendall says many farmers will be glad something is at last being done to stem the TB cycle of infec-tion.

“We cannot go on culling tens of thousands of cattle every year because of TB while knowing the disease exists in wildlife uncon-trolled. It is why the NFU will be working with the pilot companies to ensure successful pilot culls in the coming weeks.”

Businesses should get on boardMORe aUstRaLIan dairy farmers are turning to a board structure to govern their businesses, seen as a means of bringing greater professionalism and scrutiny to their operations.

Consultant Mike Weise of Client Victoria, Warnam-bool, says many farms are realising the benefits of such a move.

“There definitely seems to be an increase in the number of farming companies, family and corporate, establishing boards and then inviting an independent director to help them professionalise their multi-million dollar businesses.

“The management decisions are still kept within the family but the board uses the independent director to advise on how improve the way the farm business governs, set strategy, achieve agreed decisions, plan for succession and follow legal and compliance regulations.”

Weise recently attended an Australian Pacific Exten-sion Network (APEN) conference in New Zealand enti-tled ‘Change: Chosen or Unchosen’, where the increase in larger family farms creating boards was hotly discussed.

Weise, a professional director and member of the Aus-tralian Institute of Company Directors, says many farm-ing families had not taken time to work strategically on their businesses.

“A lot of families don’t sit down in a management team meeting and don’t have a governance structure to assess how well the team is executing the business plan.

“With a formal series of meetings, some farms do deci-sion making on the run and don’t set aside enough time to plan as a team and then review how the plan is tracking.”

Weise says structures being adopted by dairy farms were either a board or a board/management hybrid.

Farms looking to use an independent director often want someone experienced in governance, excellent at strategic thinking, has good business process and facili-tation skills to help the board come to consensus, has cor-porate legal risk management and compliance knowledge and is impartial, says Weise.

in brief

Beqa revenue touches $a1bAUSTRALIAN DAIRY processor Bega Cheese increased revenues in last financial year by 8.3% to $A1 billion and profit after tax by 24.6% to $A25.4 million.

The company’s share price rose to a record $A3.09 following the announcement.

Earnings per share grew 30.8% to 16.76 cents per share while dividends grew 15% to 7.5c/share.

Net debt was cut $A20 million to $A87 million and capital spending was relatively flat while production volumes rose from 203,765 tonnes to 210,052 tonnes.

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26 // wORLd

Arla poised for more owners

An Arla tanker collecting milk from a farm in Sweden.

aRLa FOOds has lifted its earnings and profit for the first half of 2013, thanks to an upturn in global dairy prices.

The European co-op’s total earnings for six months reached $8 billion, compared to $6.7b last year. The 19% increase is being driven by organic growth in Arla’s core and growth markets in addition to the effect of last year’s mergers and acquisitions in the UK and Ger-many, it says.

Net profit for six months topped $240m, double that delivered for same period last year. The co-op says this is in line with its aim to maintain profit at 3% of rev-enue.

“Arla has delivered a strong performance in a global market which, generally, has been characterised by higher prices due to milk production being unable to match the growth in demand,” says chief executive Peder Tuborgh.

“We have adhered to our corporate strategy inside and outside Europe, and in the first half of 2013 this has enabled us to increase the milk price paid to our owners three times, which has increased earnings for farmers.”

Last year, Arla underwent two mergers that have made it the largest dairy company in the UK and the third largest in Germany. The benefits of the mergers are now including increased production efficiencies and enhanced product portfolios, both strengthening Arla’s position in Europe.

Half-year earnings, profits rise

eUROPean daIRy co-op Arla Foods is offering full membership to 1200 UK suppliers.

If the offer is taken, Arla Foods will be owned by 14,000 farmers in Denmark, Sweden, UK, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg from next year. Arla already has 1600 UK farmer owners.

Under a plan announced last month, Arla’s board is proposing that its British supplier group, Arla Foods Milk Partnership (AFMP), through its investment arm Milk Partnership Limited, should become co-owners of Arla Foods from January 1 2014.

AFMP, the supplier group, already supplies milk to Arla

in the UK, and the group owns part of Arla’s UK business. Arla Foods chairman Ake Hantoft says over the years

it has enjoyed a good partnership with AFMP. This group has expressed its wish for co-ownership and has shown it is willing to be owners “with all that this entails”.

“The Arla board is convinced that having AFMP as part of the owner group will strengthen Arla considerably,” says Hantoft,

It will cost an AFMP farmer 15c/L of supplied milk to gain access to Arla and payment will be spread over two years.

Hantoft believes AFMP farmers are ready to make the investment “because fundamentally Arla and AFMP share the same view of the future: we believe that, as dairy farm-ers, a growing farmer-owned cooperative can give us the greatest security.”

AFMP chairman Jonathan Ovens says the offer from Arla Foods presents its members “with an unrivalled opportunity to become an owner of Europe’s largest, and most progressive, farmer-owned dairy cooperative”.

“Arla Foods amba’s mission is to secure the highest pos-sible value for its farmers’ milk, while creating opportu-nities for their growth. The company’s track record and determination to continue to develop on the global stage leaves me in no doubt that this mission lives and breathes within Arla.

“Quite simply Arla Foods amba is a business owned by farmers for the benefit of farmers. There is natural align-ment of our interests as UK dairy farmers with the exist-ing dairy farmers who own Arla Foods amba.”

The new membership boost will not initially lift Arla’s milk supply, as the co-op already buys AFMP farmers’ milk. But the agreement will increase Arla’s stability and oppor-tunities in the UK market, which Arla Foods chief execu-tive Peder Tuborgh says this is important.

“Arla’s strategy is based on growth and the road to growth is more milk. We need milk to continue to meet our customers’ requirements, grow with them and be effi-cient. All this is a prerequisite in order for us to be a stable partner for our owners and pay them a strong milk price. A stable raw milk supply is crucial for creating growth and profitability: this applies not only to Arla in the UK, but to the whole company,” says Tuborgh.

A final decision on the membership will be made by Arla Foods next month.

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28 // OPInIOnDai ry News september 10, 2013

Head Office: Top Floor,29 Northcroft St, Takapuna,Auckland 0622 Phone 09-307 0399. Fax 09-307 0122

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ABC audited circulation 27,726 as at 30.06.2013 ISSN 1175-463X

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a sad taleAN AUSTRALIAN boy (7) was reportedly at the centre of a courtroom drama recently when he challenged a court ruling over who should have custody of him. The judge, after considering who in the boy’s immediate family could take custody, and learning that domestic violence was common in the family, took the unprecedented step of allowing the boy to name his custodian. After two re-cesses to check legal refer-ences and confer with child welfare officials, the judge granted temporary custody to the Australian rugby team, whom the boy firmly believes is not capable of beating anyone.

a reasonable questionFEDERATED FARMERS has asked Northland councils a reasonable question: regarding regulation of geneti-cally modified organisms (GMOs), is it right for Northland councils to spend money and time trying to regulate some-thing already heavily regulated by the taxpay-er-funded Environmen-tal Protection Agency (EPA)? The question was posed by the Feds’ local government spokesper-son, Katie Milne, who was subsequently “swamped by emails” from the righteous anti-GE pack, despite this question having “nothing to do with the debate on GM” and everything to do with best use of public funds. Milne notes that in 2012, councils collec-tively overspent by $700 million. Councils taking on the EPA’s role makes no sense.

Full-time cow housing IT SEEMS New Zealand’s pasture-produced milk is not under threat from Northern Hemisphere farmers. A new study by a Dutch university predicts no more than 5% of dairy cows in northwest Ger-many and half of all cows in Northern Ireland will have access to grazing by 2025. The researchers, at Wageningen University, Netherlands, found graz-ing was in rapid decline in Europe. Grass-based milk production is in decline because it is linked with lower milk prices due to the seasonality of milk production, as well as lower yields and profits per cow and per hectare.

Long live the cowsA RECENT conference on cow longevity has heard there’s no one ‘magic bul-let’ for keeping productive cows in a herd; instead, it comes down to a number of things. The Cow Lon-gevity Conference, spon-sored by DeLaval, was told cow comfort is important -- bedding animals, cool-ing cows, milking proce-dures, high-quality forages. The conference heard the oldest cow on record lived to be nearly 49 years old. Big Bertha, a cow from Ireland, is also famous for having produced 39 calves. No one expects you to keep your cows around that long, even if you could. But it would be nice to keep the good ones longer if they stay healthy and productive.

DAIRY FARMERS have been on a rollercoaster of late – espe-cially given the daily misfortunes of Fonterra and its botulism debacle. To see their industry ‘in lights’ in the international media, and being described as less than perfect, has been dis-tressing.

Few will disagree Fonterra has botched its public relations response, not to mention serious mistakes at the Hautapu fac-tory that started it all. Sadly the bad publicity is far from over: the various inquiries will be rolling it out for months.

Right now we’re seeing a phenomenon you could call the ‘race to China’. Fonterra is sending a delegation there, MPI is sending its man there and John Key is planning a visit there too. With bags packed with humble pie they are hoping to pla-cate the Chinese for their stuff-ups. No mention yet about the impact on other dairy companies and others tainted and affected in various ways.

But amidst all the Fonterra turmoil is a spark of good news on the home front for dairy farmers who have kept their heads down and focused on their farming. Early indications are that the drought’s effects are being overtaken by the mild winter, and that production is now roaring away in this early spring.

It might be too soon to lay bets, but hope is there for a good season. The other good news is the global milk price holding up and the good payout announcements by all dairy companies.

One has to admire dairy farmers for their resilience during the Fonterra crisis. They have remained calm and focused on the issues on-farm, doing what they do best – producing high quality milk. They have been badly let down by Fonterra, whose directors and senior managers ought to be extending apologies to their shareholders, not just to Chinese customers.

Where’s the good news?

Got 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.


OPInIOn // 29

Hans van der Wal

Council’s final warning a prompt to action

Be sURe you will have to part with cash if you get a letter from the coun-cil headed ‘Infringement notice issued under s343C of the Resource Manage-ment Act 1991’. But fear not, things could be a lot worse.

Such a notice signals that the council suspects non-compliance, render-ing you liable for prose-cution under the RMA, conviction and a fine of tens of thousands of dol-lars.

Your offence could be, for example, ponding of dairy effluent or allowing stock to access rivers in breach of a rule in a coun-cil plan. The notice is the lesser of two evils, but you should not ride your luck because, unless you take the right action quickly, you could still end up with a conviction and a much higher fine.

An environmental infringement notice is the RMA version of a traf-fic offence notice, but with bigger fines – any-thing from $300 to $1000, depending on the mag-nitude of non-compli-ance. Like traffic fines, these notices are ‘instant’: unless you challenge them in court, you have to pay them even though you have not been convicted or sentenced by a Judge.

You have 28 days from the original notice and if you do not pay that, a further 28 days under a reminder notice. If you do not pay within the further 28 day period, the fine will be collected by the court, just like an unpaid traf-fic fine. That will include the infringement fee and a collection fee.

On the upside, like traffic fines, if you pay them on time, this is not counted as a conviction or a formal admission of guilt, but it does mean you cannot be prosecuted for that particular incident. That is always better than a conviction and a fine where the maximum is $600,000 for a company and $300 for individuals, trusts and partnerships.

Although you can fight

an infringement notice in court, this is gener-ally not worth it because the cost of the court case is invariably much more than the fine itself. Fur-ther, you can pay the fine under protest – by accom-panying the payment with a letter you did nothing wrong. This is best drafted by a lawyer familiar with environment infringe-ment notices, because if it is not done right it can make matters worse. Also, if the court finds that the council was right to issue the infringement notice, the fine could be higher than the original infringement notice.

Paying the infringe-ment fee is not enough, though, because if you have a similar non-com-pliance again you are likely to be prosecuted. The council would likely argue that the infringe-ment fine was not high enough and a convic-tion and stiff fine were necessary to ensure you changed your ways. It would be likely that the court would agree. Worse, if you have statutory lia-bility insurance your insurer could refuse your claim for the prosecution on the basis that you were reckless in ignoring the notice.

The key is to fix the source of the non-com-pliance and then get the council to confirm in writ-ing that you have done so. For example, for a pond-ing incident caused by an irrigator breakdown, this may involve repairing the irrigator and installing a fail-safe device that shuts off the irrigator if it fails. You would then want to get written acceptance from the council that the problem had been fixed.

So if you receive an infringement notice under the RMA, you can do one of two things: (1) pay it, fix the cause, obtain the council’s written confir-mation that you have and then breathe a justified sigh of relief that you did not end up with a con-viction and a fine in the tens of thousands of dol-

What should you do if the council sends you an infringement notice? This is the third of four articles by Hans van der Wal.

lars; or (2) ignore it or just pay it but do nothing else, and then wait for the next non-compliance, result-

ing prosecution and extra high fine (probably with-out insurance cover). • Hans van der Wal is a

resource management lawyer at Duncan Cotterill. email [email protected]

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IMaGIne yOU are an executive in a middling sized food manufacturer. Just as you sip your soy flat white, a techni-cian calls up saying: ‘boss, we’ve got a problem.’ Do you: (a) do the right thing and initiate a recall, even though it risks a tonne of media bricks falling on your head? Or, (b), shrug your shoul-ders and reply: ‘she’ll be right’ and shred the results?

To Federated Farmers, this is the big-gest risk from the overreaction to Fon-terra’s recall, in what has been a ‘mensis horribilis’ (horrible month) for the Kiwi dairy industry. It seems ages ago now, but on the last day of July Fonterra shareholders got a welcome uplift in the current season’s dairy payout.

About 72-hours later we were plunged into ‘Botu-geddon.’ Editorials and venal* commentators questioned whether farmers had the nous to run New Zealand’s largest and most suc-cessful company. Those sorts of com-ments made my blood boil. We even got a few hotheads from inside our industry who wanted a firing squad.

Given the 180 degree turnaround when we got the welcome all-clear last week, I am glad most dairy farmers, but especially Federated Farmers, kept their heads.

Bizarrely, almost exactly a month later, the events from late July and early August were reversed. Fonterra again revised its forecast upwards, then, a day later, we got the best possi-ble news: the con-tamination wasn’t Clostridium botuli-num. The Ministry for Primary Indus-tries had sent sam-ples for definitive testing by the United States’ Centres for Disease Control (CDC). They were able to confirm that the whey protein concentrate was botu-linum-free, lifting a huge albatross from our collective neck.

As it turns out, the CDC is one of the

few places on earth capable of confirm-ing these things for sure. Finding and confirming C.botulinum really is nee-dle-in-haystack material.

While Fonterra adopted safety first and got roasted locally for it, the co-op

will emerge with its reputation enhanced, as will New Zealand. That said, there’s still plenty for Fonterra and the rest of the industry to look into, from quality assurance to the public handling of the presumptive test results – which saw the coopera-

tive lose the media initiative from the start.

Some will say the Government hopped into this too publicly and blew it up more than was warranted. Frankly, they helped us out of a potentially deep chasm that had horrendous con-

sequences. Federated Farmers was plugged in from start to finish and I know President Bruce Wills is again making key points for New Zealand in the Chi-nese media.

In a crisis, remem-ber who kept their heads under pressure and who pan-icked. Some will have the gall to show 20/20 hindsight; they need to be called on it.

With three inquiries to report plus MPI’s recommendations for quality assurance, we can look back on this with some perspective. Since Fonterra initiated a precautionary global recall that was successful, can anyone tell me why the word ‘scandal’ was used so much? I even heard it used during the press conference which confirmed there was no C. botulinum.

Memories seem to be short these days about what a scandal is and is not. What of this year’s European ‘equine beef ’ scandal? What about

Germany’s E coli infused killer organic bean sprouts from 2011, which killed 31 people? What happened in Germany in 2011 was a scandal in every sense of the word. There was official misin-formation before the truth came out, by which time people were dead and sick. Against these two scandals, was Fonterra’s precautionary recall really in the same league?

Our global customers will now see how seriously we take food quality and safety and compare that to the cava-lier approach shown by other coun-tries. Talk is cheap but we showed by our actions our assiduous approach to food safety. That won’t be lost.

* Venal: open to bribery, selling influ-ence as a service.

Botu-geddon no moreIn the wake of the Fonterra botulism scare, Federated Farmers Dairy chairperson Willy Leferink reflects on the episode and where it leaves New Zealand’s international reputation.

In a crisis, remember who kept their heads under pressure and who panicked. Some will have the gall to show 20/20 hindsight; they need to be called on it.

Willy Leferink


aGRIBUsIness // 31

Farm investment offers ownership pathway

Circle Hill dairy farm in Milton, Otago.

a FaRM investment scheme aimed at getting more young farmers owning farms, and delivering regular cash returns to investors, launches this month.

RBS Invest director Paul Schuler, Cambridge, says this scheme differs from typical farm equity investment schemes in several respects. Ownership of the land by investors is to be fully funded, with no reliance on debt by the investment group, and the property is held separately from livestock, plant and dairy company shares.

RBS Invest’s first foray sees it seeking investors and farm operators for two Otago dairy properties.

The investors in the land company receive a return from the lease, typically based on a per-centage of the milksol-ids income relative to the land’s productive capacity and payout. It will typically equate to a return of 4-5% a year, received as a steady cash return paid monthly.

A farmer operator signing onto an RBS Invest property will own the livestock, plant and shares required, and pay a lease to the land investors. They will also progressively buy out the investors’ ownership of the land, ultimately owning the property themselves, typically in about 10 years.

Schuler says the scheme differs from most existing equity ventures where the operator owns a share of the entire business including the land from the outset, and carries significant debt levels to do so.

“The problem we have been seeing is the develop-ment of a progression bottleneck. Those operating part-ners wanting to get ahead in such ventures are unable to go forward, but are also unable to get out of the arrange-ment, often due to those big debt constraints.”

The first two farms offered for syndication by RBS Invest are near Milton, Otago. ‘Circle Hill’ is 205ha dairy unit with a 119ha support block; the other, ‘Clarendon Farm’, is a 249ha dairy unit nearby.

Schuler says part of the motivation for setting up the investment model was recognition by the RBS Invest board that the usual pathway to dairy farm ownership through 50:50 sharemilking was rapidly drying up. Share-milking positions are estimated to have decreased by 1000 in the past decade.

Schuler says there is no ‘rocket science’ in the scheme, one that is not unusual in many family farming operations. It allows the operator to progress to whole-farm owner-ship – “ultimately what motivates anyone who goes farm-ing.”

The company’s modelling indicates an operator with about 20% equity share in the farm business could achieve sole ownership in about 10 years.

“For that operator, it also enables him or her to choose their own management system, company structure and operation style. They stand alone within the business, sub-ject of course to performance reviews every year.”

The company calculates that after 10 years an opera-tor on one of the Otago properties, starting off with $2 million equity, could expect to have doubled that equity, and be able to shoulder the debt required to buy the entire operation.

Unlike some schemes, RBS Invest does not impute cap-ital gains into returns, and leaves that to individual inves-tors to determine when assessing the farm investments.

RBS was set up in 2006 by Duncan Coull, the 2000

Taranaki Sharemilker of the Year. Other partners include Dave Kilbride, Schuler and Rob Macnab. All have worked in banking and the dairy industry, and own farms.

Paul Schuler

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a nORtHLand student’s study of using duckweed to reduce nitrogen in dairy effluent runoff has won the 2013 Northland Regional Council ‘Excellence Award’.

Kerikeri High School student Jesse Prendergast’s proj-ect ‘CleaN2’ took 100 hours over six months.

He added nitrogen to water samples until levels matched those found in dairy farm effluent ponds. He then experimented with duckweed, finding the small, free-floating plant, which grows on the water’s surface, reduced nitrogen concentrations by up to 95%.

He experimented on samples containing nitrogen in various forms including ammonia, urea and nitrate. Gen-erally, he found 10g duckweed/L water reduced the quan-tity of nitrogen compounds by 550mg.

Now he wants to do more on-farm research with dairy farmers, to prepare for his ‘Realise the Dream’ nomina-tion to be sent to Wellington next month. 20 students are selected nationwide from science fairs to attend the week-long event.

The Northland Regional Council prize is $1000 for the winner’s university studies and must be used within three years.

Jesse, a year 13 (seventh form) student, will use his award in 2014 towards a four-year BE (Hons) in engineer-ing science at the University of Auckland.

He began entering science fairs at age 10, and hopes to work in science, creating waste-reducing products for environmental sustainability.

Duckweed study wins award

Wider role for Mikkelson

Jamie Mikkelson

Gea FaRM Technolo-gies has appointed New Zealand managing director Jamie Mikkelson vice pres-ident area Australasia. He will head sales and opera-tions in New Zealand and Australia, and remain MD in New Zealand.

GEA Farm Technolo-gies is owned by the GEA

Group, in 2012 earning EUR $5.7 billion.

Mikkelson (40) was born in Matamata and has spent most of his life in Waikato. For 20 years he has worked at Milfos, Hamilton, where he helped grow the business from a start-up, alongside its founder, the late Philip

Locke. Mikkelson was a shareholder and the man-aging director of Milfos when Locke died last year.

When GEA Farm Tech-nologies bought Milfos in late 2012, Mikkelson became managing director of its New Zealand opera-tions. He is now one of eight global VPs, respon-

sible for sales and perfor-mance of 190 employees and 50 service partners.

Mikkelson says the acquisition of Milfos by GEA completed the companies offering of a ‘total solutions provider’ for pastoral dairy farmers. New Zealand is being positioned by GEA as a ‘world hub’ for pastoral farming.

He says business is about people first and products second. “My role is aligning people and the business to a common strategy and helping them deliver on that strategy.”

The challenge of man-aging Australia was not dissimilar to the chal-lenges of managing the dif-ferences between farming in, for example, the North and South Islands.

“While New Zealand and Australia are similar,

they are also very differ-ent – I don’t expect to take a NZ approach in Australia and likewise what works in Tasmania will not neces-sarily work in New South Wales. It’s about under-standing in real detail the drivers, challenges and where we can add value,” says Mikkelson.

Ownership by GEA Group allows for prod-ucts made in New Zealand, such as FIL and Milfos, to be marketed elsewhere in the world.

In New Zealand GEA Farm Technologies owns and markets milking machine and farm man-agement equipment from Milfos and WestfaliaSurge, dairy hygiene and animal health supplies from FIL, effluent handling equip-ment from Houle and barn equipment supplies from Norbco.

Kerikeri High School student Jesse Prendergast, 17, with his winning science project showing duckweed can reduce nitrogen concentrations by 95%.

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34 // ManaGeMent

Watch out for machinesMOtORIsts On rural roads are warned to watch for rural contractors and their large machines as the hay and silage season starts.

Rural Contractors New Zealand (RCNZ) president Steve Levet says with spring here and grass growth starting to peak “contrac-tors will be cranking out their gear, getting ready to hit the roads with tractors, balers and silage wagons.”

“So there is going to be more and larger machinery on our roads than normal as con-tractors’ travel around the country.”

Levet is advising motorists to be extra vigilant and patient when approaching rural contractors and their machinery.

“Some of our gear can be pretty big and it may sometimes be hard for operators to see prevailing traffic approaching them. The last thing they want to do is hold up traffic and they’ll make every effort to ensure motorists can pass them in a safe and timely manner.

“All we are asking is that motorists exhibit patience and understanding.” And take a wide berth when passing machinery, he sug-gests.

Meanwhile, with new rules for agricul-tural vehicles having come into force on June 1, RCNZ is reminding contractors to familia-rise themselves with these new regulations. www.ruralcontractors.org.nz

Wintering subject of study

wHat MaKes a wintering deal work, and what causes problems?

DairyNZ regional leader Canter-bury/North Otago, Virginia Serra, aims to find out in a study she’s doing as part of a Kellogg’s Leadership Programme.

“I talk to a lot of dairy farmers and there’s always this issue that they may not get the results they want,” she told Dairy News. “It can be quite a frustrating issue and I want to hear what people on the other side are saying.”

Consequently she’s surveying dairy farmers, graziers, consultants, and stock agents, to find out what factors in win-tering relationships produce a win-win for dairy farmer and grazier, and what’s different where things don’t work out so well.

“There are some very successful relationships. What do they do to make them work?”

One factor she’s already noted is how late prices are sometimes negoti-ated. “There has to be a better way to set the price.”

Not many wintering deals include

a written contract, she’s finding, but where they are used she’s hoping to identify the best format.

“Wintering is quite an important aspect for the dairy farmer but it is also important for the grazier because they can make good returns.”

Where things don’t go to plan dairy farmers may take things into their own hands, with a run-off block, only to find that proves to be an even more expen-sive option. “Paying someone to do it is probably cheaper if you get a good result.”

Also, many run-off blocks end up being converted to milking platforms so contracted out winter grazing makes a comeback.

To keep the project manageable within the Kellogg’s course timelines – she has to write it up by November – she’s focussing on her region but says she’s happy to send survey forms to farmers outside that area. If enough responses are received the data may be analysed for a report to the likes of the New Zealand Institute of Primary Industry Management and/or the South Island Dairy Event. E-mail: [email protected] Responses will be strictly confidential.

andRew [email protected]

Virginia Serra

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36 // ManaGeMent

FedeRated FaRMeRs says hiring the right staff and better education will help curb animal abuse on farms.

Employment spokeswoman Katie Milne says losing your temper and injuring animals costs a farm in lost production and vet help later.

“We have had a few cases due to the calving season. This is a time for farmers to assess who they are hiring and whether they are hot-headed and prone to lashing out.

“All staff need education on how to handle animals because animal abuse is inexcusable. We recently surveyed members regarding the issue, and hope to [learn] how we can better inform them.”

Farm worker Saul Beaumont was recently sen-tenced to four months’ home detention and dis-qualified from working with cows for five years. He had pleaded guilty to 46 charges of animal cruelty after breaking the tails of 200 cows on a dairy farm in Taranaki.

Judge Peter Spiller, Hamilton District Court, had considered a jail term of one year, but Beau-mont’s early guilty plea, remorse and anger problems caused the penalty to be reduced to home detention. The case was brought by the SPCA after Beaumont’s employer reported him.

Federated Farmers Dairy chairman Willy ;eferink says the sentencing shows animal cruelty will not be tolerated.

“Rather than hanging the individual out to dry, we need to learn from these issues and minimise the opportunity of this happening again. We feel this sen-tencing has got the balance right and by no means undermines the seriousness of the crime.”

Right staff, education help curb animal abuse

Heat detection easier with automationBIG LaBOUR efficien-cies and more accurate heat detection are achiev-able by automation, says TruTest Group.

This was a prompt in the company’s develop-ment of its MilkHub heat

detection system, says group product manager Shane Dooley.

TruTest says that, whereas current meth-ods of heat detection rely heavily on staff knowledge to spot the signs of heat

– with a risk that many heats will be missed or AB straws waste on no-heat cows – infra red scanning and self-adhesive reflec-tive patches raise detec-tion to a new level.

The company’s

MilkHub heat scan-ner (infra red) and heat detectors (the patches) “improve on the bene-fits of using heat mount detectors by minimising the requirement for visual assessment during milk-ing”.

“Pressure from a mounting animal reveals a highly reflective layer. While still visually detect-able, when a cow walks under the MilkHub heat scanner the infra red beam detects the extent the patch has been rubbed and indicates whether the cow needs to be checked or AB’d by a flashing light

and audible beep,” Dooley says.

The Milkhub heat scan-ner can also

be integrated into the MilkHub

rotary system (through in-bail identification), enabling automatic draft-ing of cows on heat.

Says Dooley “staff need not do a thing: cows on heat will be automati-cally detected and drafted and waiting in a pen after leaving the shed. Also, the drafting data will be auto-matically captured in the MilkHub online manage-ment tool, providing a record of cow EID, heat detection timings and date, allowing closer man-agement of breeding.”

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ManaGeMent // 37

Tree planting helps pasture growthaUstRaLIan daIRy farmers Russell and Maxine Napper believe trees make a better dairy farm.

Reducing salinity, keeping cows warm and cool, encouraging pasture growth and making it a better place to live and work is a decent short-list of reasons.

The Nappers run 200 cows on 70ha in the Macalister Irrigation District in Sale, Gippsland, Victoria.

“I like trees and I could see the reac-tion of the dairy cows,” Russell says. “On a stinking hot day in a paddock without trees they’ll all crowd around the trough. The dominant cows will get in, whereas the heifers won’t get anywhere near it.

“Whereas when you have trees, the dominant cows might take all the shade but at least then the younger ones get access to water.”

The Nappers, mindful of animal welfare on their farm, say trees are the single most important factor in maintaining a happy herd. “On a very hot or very cold day the cows are clearly happier in a paddock with trees in it,” says Russell.

Having contented cows, however, hasn’t meant a drop in production. Instead the cows cope better with extremes of tem-peratures, while pastures thrive in the shel-ter of planned plantings.

“You see a cow on a hot day standing there panting and you wonder how much energy she is using trying to stay cool. But if she’s feeling comfortable she will go out and have a bit of a graze then come back.”

Giving land over to trees has caused pasture – and potential profitability – grow significantly. Since starting planting he has noted a threefold increase in dry-matter

consumed per hectare. Better care of the land has lifted milk production. “We pro-duce 1.5 million L off 60ha.”

In the early 1990s a routine inspection of a bore revealed the water table had risen dangerously high. He had seen it before and knew that if nothing was done the land would soon become barren.

“I remember in 1961 the paddock over the road from my school turned black after we had a wet winter. In the 1950s irrigation was extended to Nambrok for soldier set-tlement and within three years the water table rose 20 feet. The bottom end of Nam-brok just turned black.”

Indiscriminate land clearing and irriga-tion on farms was causing salinity.

Now, Napper says, reintroducing trees is allowing the land to heal itself. “There was a problem here and the question, was what we are going to do about it? We knew getting some native vegetation back would be helpful.”

A salinity trial (Joint Action Salt Action) prompted Nappers to begin many tree plantings that have transformed their farm. After patchy early results, Russell helped form the Clydebank Landcare Group and started to get the right plants for his prop-erty. “We did some first direct seeding trials in the area. And that was quite suc-cessful in 1991-92.”

With the growing trees sucking up water, the water-table started to recede. Adding a groundwater pump (one of sev-eral in the area) has helped turn vast areas of formerly unproductive land into good dairy pasture. The government helped pay for the pumps, which are maintained through a levy on irrigation water.

Russell Napper

Trees help make a better dairy farm, according to Australian farmer Russell Napper.

3599 Metabolizer halfpg vert.ind1 1 9/11/08 9:20:42 AM


38 // ManaGeMent

Bumper crop of heifers

Therese Phillips

■ Starts as soon as cows calve ■ Pile feed into colostrum mob, health treat-

ments and minerals as required ■ Split milkers into mobs ASAP, so young ones

and late calvers are looked after ■ Tail paint 35 days before PSM ■ Metricheck every cow ■ CIDR anything that still has paint on at 10

days before PSM ■ Heat detection aids from PSM ■ “If in doubt, draft her out” during AB

MatInG PLan

twO yeaRs ago, Rotorua dairy farmer Therese Phillips started planning for a bumper crop of heifer replacement calves, and this year, that’s exactly what she got.

“Three weeks into calving we had just over 250 cows in and 120 heifer replacements born; that’s way up from last year when we only had about 85 in total.”

With 420 cows on 205ha, the lower order sharemilker says their season is off to a good start, because they chose to make their herd’s reproductive performance a year-round focus, not just something to think about at calving.

“By lifting our 6-week

in-calf rate from 54% to 74%, we’ve seen huge benefits this season already and not just with replacement numbers: calving was faster, easier to manage, and August production was up 18% from having more cows calved and back in the shed earlier.”

When Phillips returned to run the family farm in 2011, she arrived just in time for a “long and hectic calving” after only 50% of the herd got in-calf from the first six weeks of mating the year before.

She could see the problem, and went to the farm’s LIC customer relationship manager, FarmWise Consultant and vet, for a solution.

“We went through every report we had on the last mating including the Fertility Focus Report which shows whether you’ve been bad at detecting on-heat cows, or if they just aren’t coming on at all.

“It was clear we had a few issues, so I asked lots of questions… and we identified what changes we could make straight away and what could take a bit longer.

“First we split the herd into two mobs after calving – one with young and skinny cows, and the other with old and fats, and we saw a big improvement in the young ones; they weren’t getting bullied out of feed.

“We increased the in-calf rate by 4% that season, but the big jump came in this last season just gone.”

She puts the jump down to cows being in great condition all year-round, and the support she received from the farm staff and her dad, the farm and herd owner.

“We split the herd as quickly as we could after calving again too but the cows were definitely fed better because we’d lengthened the round by 10 days as well, so they were always going into good feed and getting a bit of PK biscuit too.”

For mating, they used CIDRs, but only on the cows that would pay off,

including younger cows and the ones in better condition, and made a plan to take care of all the small details that can make a big difference at mating.

“We monitored pre-mating heats closely, Metrichecked everything, and spent heaps of time seeing if they were on during AB. The biggest thing for me is the heifer replacement numbers because once we hit 100, I get anything over that for my own herd, and I’ve done pretty well with that this year.”

Mating starts on October 20 and it’s much the same plan for the farm, with a few extra strategies and a goal to hit the industry 6-week in-calf rate target of 78%. “I’m confident we’ll

hit target this year, and hopefully next year we’ll go up again.

“We split the herd 10 days earlier this year, since we had more cows in. We’re piling the feed into them and we’ve got a good plan sorted for mating too with 6 weeks of AB and

then short gestation bulls for some of the later cows, because there’s still a huge difference between calves born day 1 and day 42.

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40 // ManaGeMent

A passion to see Friesians achieve their potentialJason Halford, passionate about dairying and his herd of 265 Friesians, cares well for his animals, a hallmark of his highly successful career. Reporter Peter Burke met him on the Horowhenua farm where he sharemilks.

tHe FaRM is not large: 91ha near Opiki, north of Shannon. It’s excellent dairy country and a potato growing area. The farm is owned by John Seymour and is beautifully set up. Milking is through a modern herring-bone shed and the tanker turnaround area is neatly land-scaped. The farm’s utility sheds are new and modern.

Jason and his wife Nikki moved here three years ago after managing dairy farms in Manawatu. Jason (35) was born in Pahiatua, a sort of townie who began in dairying when he left school. He also worked in a butter factory and did the typical

Kiwi two-year OE in the UK, working in a bar.

At age 25, realising he needed to upskill to go places in the dairy indus-

try, he went to Massey University, taking a bach-elor course in applied science, majoring in agri-culture.

Armed with a degree and passion for the indus-try, Halford began to start to set goals and made a plan to succeed. Three

years ago he won the title of ‘farm manager of the year’ in the national dairy Industry awards.

“I now understand what I thrive on and that is on wanting to win and aiming to and wanting to be the best I can be. I realised in that first attempt at the awards that I needed to better under-

stand dairying and agri-culture. It made me look hard at myself and what’s important to me in farm-ing.

“Other people who have been through the dairy industry awards say it’s helped them too. It’s not rocket science, it’s just

focusing on your goals and making them achievable because you have to realise you’ve got a short time in dairying because it so hard

on you.”Halford is goal focused.

He has long and short terms plans and makes sure they’re always there in front of him. He goes as far as making up pass-words to remind him of the goals every day. He makes lists and ticks off what he’s achieved and he constantly sets new challenges for himself. He sees himself as posi-

tive and solution focused and develops strategies to deal with problems on the farm. And he is driven by the excitement and desire to see his animals per-form to their potential and to give them whatever it takes to be the best.

“We tend to underes-timate how much a cow can eat given the opportu-nity. They can eat a lot of food after calving. I think

it’s a matter of feed feed feed . We tend to put our cows into winter graz-ing and we spend a lot of money on that and then the cows come home and we feed them a little bit less because it’s spring and we are a bit tight. But we shouldn’t do that; we need feed our cows and front-end our milk production.”

Halford says he never accepts a drop in his milk

“We tend to underestimate how much a cow can eat given the opportunity. They can eat a lot of food after calving.”

Jason Halford says he never accepts a drop in milk production.

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ManaGeMent // 41

A passion to see Friesians achieve their potential

JASON HALFORD operates on system five and that means feeding a lot more supplements – mainly grain and PKE.

“What’s really important is to understand what your system is and not deviate from it. Up to 32% of their diet is supple-ments. I see PKE as offering a great return as a supplement. I have used it in the past and it’s a good product and my cows like it and they produce milk off it. It’s financially viable and readily available.”

A key strategy is his feeding regime for his cows, especially their daily intake. “I am always calculating that the cows get the same amount of feed each day. So the cows are not getting fed 15kg one day and 20kg the next: every day is the same. That means the cows are always full

and don’t gorge themselves. They are my asset and they can produce so much more milk,so I have to give them the opportu-nity to prove themselves.”

The feeding policy is paying off. Three years ago his cows were on average each producing 596kgMS; this season he is tar-geting 625kgMS. Over the herd this equates to 165,652kgMS per annum, a big lift in production.

He applies the same philoso-phy to feeding calves. He weans them at 8-10 weeks and gets them onto solids as quickly as possible.

His goal is to breed strong animals that can come into the herd and compete with the cows producing 600+kgMS annually. He’s also focused on feeding cows that have just calved. The cows’ body condition is changing

and they need to get all the feed they need to settle into being milkers.

Halford and wife Nikki now have a baby son and now are challenged to get their work/life balance right.

They accept this is a busy time of the year and that long hours and hard work go with the territory.

Says Halford, “I love my cows. They are enjoyable to be around especially when they have got weight on them and don’t look like toast racks.

“System five is still profitable; it’s a matter of staying on track and I can’t see myself in a great hurry to move on. I want to grow this herd so that it’s a really sale-able item. I want cows that are two to six years old, with sound quarters and producing high.”

FeedInG MORe sUPPLeMents

New arrivals: calves on Jason Halford’s farm

production. “If I peak at 2.8 I’m not accepting a drop of 7-10% a month. I am challenging myself to a drop of only 2-3% a month.”

Feeding his cows well is one of Halford’s key goals. He believes cows can be so much more productive if they are fed better.

“If the BW and PW

is increasing, our cows are becoming more effi-cient. That’s fine, but are we producing any more milk from those efficient cows? I don’t know. I tend

to think we may be miss-ing the boat a bit when it comes to getting the best out of our cows.”


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42 // management

Learn it online

LIC’s online learning centre helps farmers update skills.

LIC HaS launched an ‘online learning centre’ to help farmers to update skills and knowledge with-out leaving the farm.

LIC’s general man-ager of farm systems, Rob Ford, says the pace of tech-nology improvements is rising in dairying.

“We introduce new and

improved systems every day…. All these things are logical and easy to use but the challenge is to deliver the information in the right way, and at the right time, to match the demands on farm.

“We wanted to give farmers an online resource which would be fun to

use and accessible around the clock. Currently the centre contains 48 interac-tive audio and video learn-ing modules and over time we’ll add more modules.”

Modules on the new centre, which is free to LIC farmer customers, help farmers get more value, easily, from their LIC animal recording. It also contains a module on tagging management.

LIC is finding more farmers are opting to

install a farm automation system.

“We’ve now got a range of Protrack farm automa-tion systems which cater to the size of the herd and the needs of the farmer, and the learning centre contains insights and tips for getting more value out of the system. “

And the centre is accessible 24/7 – “when-ever farmers want to find out something, either for themselves or their staff.”

at LeaSt 3000 dairy farmers have this year done training courses run by LIC.

HR general manager Megan Scott says farmer training has “has changed dramatically in recent years”.

“Farming today is complex. Many farmers manage larger properties and herds than their predecessors did, and doing this well means they need to utilise the best technologies….

“We develop training on topics which most appeal to farmers, and deliver them in their communities at times which fit in with the farming calendar.”

In the last 12 months LIC has run 300 training modules in class-rooms and on farms.

“We look at the locations for training to ensure it’s easy for farmers to attend: in the last year Waipapa, Te Puke, Papakaio, Horsham Downs, Ngatea, Ashbur-ton, Gore and Morrinsville.”

Scott says some modules are aimed at helping farmers get maximum value from their Minda herd records.

“There is huge interest in going beyond the basic functions to understand how to tailor reports so, say, they can monitor the reproductive performance of the herd. The same approach applies to extending the use of our Protrack farm automation systems.

“The important thing is that the information is delivered when farmers need it – ie calving infor-mation in the lead-up to calving. When NAIT com-pliance was introduced we also developed a special module to help farmers understand what they needed to do – and how we could help make it easy.”

Scott says farmers can tailor courses including group class-room sessions (free), one-on-one tai-lored training and now online with the launch of the ‘learning centre’.

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breedIng / anImaL HeaLtH // 43

Data helps fine tune herdWItH betWeen 600 and 700 cows in herd recording, Aus-tralian farmer John Lillico, has plenty of data. He recently dis-covered the Genetic Progress Report makes that data work for him as a management tool.

Drawing upon his herd recording data, the Genetic Progress Report shows the impact of Lillico’s breeding decisions and tracks his herd’s genetic improvement over time.

Lillico, and his wife Vicki, dairy near Smithton in north-west Tasmania, with help from two to three employees. About 75% of the herd calves in spring, the rest in autumn.

Production averages 9000-9500 L/cow/year from a mostly pasture-based feeding system. Cows get about 2.5 tonnes of concentrates in the dairy each year.

Although Lillico has always taken a strong interest in breed-ing and genetics, it has been in the context of operating a com-mercial dairy business.

The herd’s Genetic Progress Report shows it ranks in the top 10% for Australian Profit Rank-ing and well above the national average for type, longevity, fat and protein.

The results confirmed that Lillico’s breeding strategy over the years has worked. He selects bulls based on high APR and type.

“We have always believed in the science behind the APR system. We’ve always selected from the top bulls for APR while paying close attention to their ABVs for type. And our report confirms our experience: that following the APR for selection delivers us the most profitable

bulls.”Lillico uses a combination of

bulls bred in Australia and over-seas. “When we are looking at bulls from overseas, I’ll use their ABV(i) if they are available. We find them more reliable than the breeding values from their country of origin.”

The Lillicos have tradition-ally used progeny test straws over a small portion of the herd but in the past 12 months have begun using genomically tested young bulls instead. “We are looking forward to seeing the full proofs from these bulls when their daughters come into pro-duction,” he said.

Lillico’s main interest in the report was the traits it high-lighted for improvement. “My initial reaction to the report was that it highlighted the traits we need to keep focussing on, par-

ticularly mastitis and daugh-ter fertility. It also showed how mating decisions from year to year can quite dramatically affect the herd’s overall genetic trends and therefore profitabil-ity. It certainly puts a new per-spective on the data from our herd,” he says.

Lillico says he was surprised and disappointed by the herd’s graphs for mastitis resistance and fertility, although both sat

at about national average.“Daughter fertility has

become a big focus for us because we don’t want to cross breed.

“I think genomics will help us identify young bulls that rate well for both profitability and daughter fertility.”

Like many herds, Hindlee’s graph for genetic progress for mastitis resistance fluctuates from year to year.

“The mastitis graph made us step back and look at what might have contributed to the curve going up and down. I think it may be due to using some promising young bulls that didn’t have a lot of daughter data and a couple of them fared quite badly for mas-titis resistance. That dates back to the pre-genomics years and I’m hoping genomics will help us avoid those sort of mistakes in the future,” he says.

John and Vicki Lillico at their Smithton dairy property.

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Yes or No? Yes or No?


eVerYbOdY needS a plan for foot and mouth disease (FMD), says Live-stock Improvement Cor-poration (LIC) bull farm veterinarian Ken Cottier.

It was the one major take-home message he wanted to give from a briefing session on LIC’s preparedness to respond to an outbreak of an exotic animal disease (like FMD).

“Everybody that trades or has anything that can pass on the virus, that is cattle, or germplasm or any other animals that are susceptible to FMD, must have a plan,” he says.

“One of the hardest things to do in an emer-gency is to think of what to do immediately. With

an FMD outbreak in New Zealand, the most impor-tant part is you do the right thing to try and stop it or limit the spread.”

In 2004 LIC produced

a 40-page plan – in 2005 there was an FMD scare on Waiheke Island and they used the document to dictate what LIC would do to protect its germplasm and animals.

In the event of an outbreak LIC first must take instruction from the Ministry for Primary

Industries, says Cottier. “They will dictate everything. They will issue a control area which gives them the legal right to stop people moving cattle,

germplasm, or anything else that might harbour FMD.

“We don’t know how big the control area would be – if it was up north it might be north of Auck-land, if it was in central North Island it might be right through the North Island and if it’s near Wel-

lington, they might say the whole of New Zealand.

“There’s a national standstill period for how-ever long it takes to delin-eate the extent of the outbreak. That could be anywhere from a week to a month.

“Everything stops moving and there’s a period of investigation to delineate the boundaries of the outbreak and then restrictions will be put in place.”

The first requirement is to follow what the min-istry says. But secondly, “we have to look after our-selves, protect our live-stock, protect LIC semen stocks and maintain enough stocks of quaran-tine semen to maintain our national dairy herd if necessary”.

Those things that can harbour FMD on the

LIC premises at Ruakura include livestock – they usually have about 1000 stock on site at any one time – bovine semen stocks, milk samples for testing, DNA tissue sam-ples and animal health

team samples received from vets. FMD can last in a frozen sample indef-initely. It is very conta-gious and can last outside the host animal for up to a couple of weeks.

What LIC would do

immediately on the first day is straightforward and simple: lock all farm gates, stop all semen collections, cease all stock movements and farm visits. All those procedures are aimed at protecting its bulls.

anImaL HeaLtH // 45 44 // anImaL HeaLtH

Plan now for foot andPam [email protected]

Ken Cottier, LIC

“One of the hardest things to do in an emergency is to think of what to do immediately. With an FMD outbreak in New Zealand, the most important part is you do the right thing to try and stop it or limit the spread.”

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mouth – vet

“On our farms, all our animals are behind double fences and all our fences are at least 2m apart. You never get nose-to-nose contact but because FMD can remain outside the host for quite a long time, faeces on boots or tyres can bring it in.”

Any farm staff who have contact with ani-mals outside LIC are sent home. “During the Wai-heke scare, that is what happened – guys went home for three days. The other staff stayed and they are the only ones that go

on farm.” The disease can be

brought on to a site on “two legs or four”. But with a lock-down management plan in place, the only way the virus could enter would be through ‘pluming’, which is far less likely. This is when you get large amounts of virus at any one spot, usually only in pig farms. “If there are a lot of pigs all infected they produce a huge amount of virus and it can plume like a cloud and go by air movement.”

Cottier says with an FMD outbreak, all services will stop during the stand-still period which would probably be two weeks. “Nothing will happen including mating even if it’s in spring. All techs have got to home and lock up their tanks of semen, and equipment and vehi-cles.” They will need to wash clothes and disinfect equipment before they attend to any of their own animals.

“All herd testing will stop, all equipment on farm stays there, all vehi-

cles are secured and disin-fection procedures follow. Milk samples will be dis-posed of but chemically disinfected first and there are further procedures for that.”

To make sure semen is safe, all semen is quaran-tined for 60 days as a stan-dard practice.

This is based on an assumption the disease could have been present in New Zealand for up to 30 days before detection. In reality it is likely to be detected a lot sooner than that.

PRECAUTIONARY STEPS in case of a disaster such as an FMD outbreak are part of ev-eryday operations at LIC, says AB manager Scott Ballinger.

Those steps double the amount of handling required for each straw and come at a cost. But they both protect LIC genetic stock in the face of an outbreak and ensure it will never pass on the disease in its products.

Ballinger says on site there are several tanks with several hundred thousand straws con-taining stock going back to the 70s, called genetic insurance. They take 80 straw from every bull to put aside for DNA which doesn’t get used. With every batch off a bull, four straws are put aside for museum stock.

All the semen is packaged, frozen and comes into the warehouse, says Ballinger. There’s a series of tanks, each

holding about 200,000 straws. A tank is filled and it’s locked down for 60 days. “So if there is an outbreak and we catch that with clinical signs in our animals, we will know our stock is not clean so it is discarded.

“By going through this pro-cess we have to handle each straw eight times. If we were just processing the straws to send out to the field we would have to handle it four times. The labour itself is a huge cost and tanks cost $20,000 each.”

After the 60 days all stock goes into “quarantine” in the bulk warehouse. At present it holds about 2.4 million straws. All that stock has been through the process and is sitting there in a clean state. Virgin nitro-gen is used and the stock only moves in one direction.

LIC also has 1.5 millions straws sitting at Christchurch.

All have gone through same 60 day process. “With a disease outbreak, if it knocked out the North Island it is likely to stop us processing liquid semen. We have to have stock somewhere else and it’s ideal to have it in the South Island, so we can continue to distribute semen for insemination during the season.

“It seems a funny place to have it, in Christchurch with the earthquakes, but it’s out at Hornby which is pretty stable. With the earthquakes, and also the ash clouds a few years ago, we had to use that stock and distribute it out to techni-cians.”

At peak times LIC distributes 100,000-120,000 straws a day so in an FMD outbreak logistics would be “horrendous”. But they believe with their manage-ment plan in place, staying op-erational would be achievable.

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anImaL HeaLtH // 47 46 // anImaL HeaLtH

UV milk purifier outs disease in Oz calves

a mILK purification system has overcome calf health problems in a large dairy near Mt Gambier, South Australia, reports

the supplier, Westfalia-Surge.

James and Robyn Mann run Donovan’s Dairy, at Wye, milking 2200 cows at peak time on a 116 unit rotary platform.

“Some time ago we

CHrIS dIngLecould not get on top of salmonella issues,” says James Mann. “Every time we vaccinated, we got another strain. It was a massive drug cost, so we decided to go with a UV Pure purifier system. It was the logical next step – we weren’t getting any-where with vaccines.”

The WestfaliaSurge UV Pure ultraviolet calf milk purifier is a modu-lar unit built around stain-less steel UV turbulators. The UV lamp is inserted into a quartz tube allow-ing the light to penetrate the milk as it passes over the tube and into a sepa-rate calf milk vat. A hot water circuit allows cold milk to be brought up to feeding temperature. The flexible system is scalable depending on the size of the installing dairy opera-tion.

Waste milk from masti-tis cows is often discarded, but if treated properly to lower bacterial or patho-gen levels,it can replace milk sources that calf-rear-ers would otherwise need to buy. The ultraviolet light in the UV Pure system penetrates bacterial cells in the milk, destroying their DNA bonds, killing the bacteria and eliminat-ing their ability to repro-duce and grow.

It kills the bacte-ria without affecting the nutrient value of the milk, and the immune factors and proteins remain unchanged. Vita-mins A, B6, B12 and C remain intact and there is an increase in Vitamin D, which does not occur with traditional heat pas-teurisation. The milk is never heated above feed-ing temperature, helping to preserve its beneficial immunoglobulins.

Donovan’s Dairy installed the UV Pure system a year ago and it has worked during two calvings, totalling 1050 calves with just 15 losses in

that time.Barb Habner has been

managing calves at the farm for 10 years and says sick calves have been mini-mal since the new system was started. “Now, if any calf gets sick, it’s one course of antibiotics and they’re fixed.”

All the mastitis milk goes into the 1000L tank and Habner tops it up with fresh milk for the required amount. “We purify what we need for the calves that day, and tip out what’s left.”

The UV Pure is auto-mated and easy to use with minimal training required for operators. It will start automatically at pre-set times and calculates the required process time for the amount of milk, reduc-ing time and energy. It incorporates an automatic clean-in-place wash pro-

cess after every batch.“You select how many

litres are in the tank, press ‘go’ and it does the process and shuts off when it’s fin-ished,” explains Habner. “When we have colostrum milk in, we show it as twice the actual volume.”

The colostrum milk is purified and fed separately at the calving pad. They clear the pad three times a day during calving, when they have 40 cows calving per day at peak time.

“From the purifier the milk goes into a cooling tank to maintain it at 14°C if we need to store it other-wise it comes out at 20°C – or whatever we set it at – and straight to the calves.

“It is easy to use, giving us healthy calves where it was previously hard work…. This is so much better than mixing powder. Life is easier and the UV Pure works in well with the daily routine.”

All the calves get 4L/day and are weaned at 110kg.

While they are in the calf shed, they get ad lib grain and hay and access to water.

“It is easy to use, giving us healthy calves where it was previously hard work…. This is so much better than mixing powder. Life is easier and the UV Pure works in well with the daily routine.”

Calf manager Barb Habner and James Mann inspect this year’s calves.

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anImaL HeaLtH // 47

Top-ranked Oz breeder

auStraLIan daIrY farmers and Holstein breeders Bryan and Joanne Dickson have had their herd ranked as the best in Australia.

It is the first time in ten years that a south-west Victoria breeder has topped the Australian Profit Rank-ings. The feat is even more remark-able as the Dickson’s Emu Banks stud herd of 728 is double the average size.

The Dicksons, at Terang, have also bred two heifers in the top 20 rank-ings.

The number one ranking has been revealed in the August release of Aus-tralian Breeding Values (ABVs) by the Australian Dairy Herd Improvement Scheme (ADHIS).

The Australian Profit Ranking (APR) is the main breeding index available for Australian dairy sires and is based on a series of nine production and non-production traits.

Dickson says the selection of highly ranked APR bulls and strict culling of lesser performing cows had led to the national success. “It’s all in the genetics. Breeding with good bulls is the top of my list,” he says.

ABVs express a sire’s genetic potential for a single trait such as milk protein content or milking speed. A breeding index reflects a sire’s genetic potential for a combination of several traits, making it easier for dairy farm-

ers to compare the suitability of dif-ferent sires for their herd.

The APR, the main breeding index available for Australian dairy sires, is a single index that reflects nine traits that influence net farm profitability, including production (milk, fat and protein yields) and non-production traits. Non-production traits include survival (longevity), fertility, mastitis resistance, liveweight, temperament and milking speed. The contribution of each trait towards the final APR value is ‘weighted’ according to its relative contribution to profitability.

Michelle Axford from ADHIS says the Dickson’s top ranking is an even bigger feat when the herd size was considered. “Bryan and Jo’s result is special because they have such a large herd. Most near the top are much closer to the average size of 250 cows,” she says.

Axford says that to achieve the number ranking proved the Dicksons are “very careful breeders”. “They use genomic technology well and are careful in their bull choices, and how they mate and how they decide which cows should be bred and which ones culled.”

The Dicksons have been moving up the rankings for several years and were number two for the Holstein breed in April this year.

The herd has an APR of 113 and an ASI of 92, the second best in Australia. It has a protein ABV 16kg above aver-

age, the best in Australia, 470 L milk, and 14kg fat.

Dickson says the use of genomics had helped in the herd development. “More than 30% are genomically tested, with more testing being under-taken each year,” he says.

“A key part of our success is that we herd test and we don’t milk lower performing cows,” he said. “We cull the low performers even if they look good. It’s hard but that’s how we got to this level.”

Genomic bulls dominate the top bulls in the latest list of ABVs. Axford says half the Holstein bulls in the latest Good Bulls Guide were young genomic bulls.

“Genomic – or DNA – testing is having a major impact on dairy arti-ficial breeding in the two years since the technology was introduced in Australia,” she said.

The Dickson farm is maintaining good production with almost 9000L/cow and 630-640kgMS.

Dickson says he had aimed for a top 10 ranking but once he achieved that he set his sights on the top. “Once we got in the top few I started think-ing about reaching number one. It’s nice to get there.”

Emu Banks sells 50-60 bulls each year to Genetics Australia and other AI, companies, by exporting to China and to the local market. 90% of the bulls sold have been genomically tested.

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Heat detection for under $1/cowHeatmarK deteCtOr maker Rurtec says when cow hair is all fall-ing out as it does in the spring, the sure way is to get adhesive all the way to the skin.

It says the new Heatmark Ero is the best in heat detection, well bonded for under a dollar a cow.

Rurtec has marketed heat detec-tors for 12 years. Now the company believes it has a breakthrough prod-uct with convenient application and much lower purchase price.

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for the coming season, new Heat-mark Ero is set to revolutionise heat detection, it says.

“The “quick cure” Ero aerosol adhesive offers the convenience of press button administra-tion. And it allows bonding to the skin without the messiness of having to spread the glue yourself, as is the case with Kamar detectors.

“Incorporating scratch indica-tor technology, Heatmark detectors

give better differentiation between activation from a true standing heat and from other rubbing. Dye bubble type detectors may be fully acti-

vated by other pres-sure such as from low branches or head resting by herdmates. Heatmark detectors

however, require significant rub-bing from a true standing heat to fully rub all the silver coating off the detector.”Tel.0800 RURTEC

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48 // anImaL HeaLtH anImaL HeaLtH // 49

Money spent on track and lane upgrades can be wasted if key principles are not met.

Watch where cows must walk

Lame COWS in spring can be frustrating, costly and harm staff morale. A lot of effort goes into

transitioning the calving cow, avoiding metabolic disease and keeping mas-titis low. So how can farm-ers prevent lameness?

Money spent on track and lane upgrades can be

anna IrWIn wasted if key principles are not met. A track or lane should:

■ have a camber of 3-5% ■ be an appropriate width

for the herd, especially near the dairy shed

■ have a gradient not more than 10%. Con-sider constructing steps if you have a steep section close to the shed or at an underpass

■ have a well-formed and compacted base, with suitable top-surface i.e lime rock. If sections of the track become boggy during wet periods these can be addressed with shingle.Another potential

problem zone is the transi-tion between the track and concrete race or yard.

Ensuring good drain-age, compaction of mate-rial and an appropriate nib wall can help. Sometimes the only permanent solu-tion is to concrete this area and ensure the tran-sition is on a flat, straight section, away from the shed.

Taking the time to address issues in the yard area can help to prevent lameness and improve cow flow.

■ Is the yard big enough? Larger cows need 1.5m2 and smaller cows 1.3m2.

■ Are there stones on the yard or feed-pad? Use nib walls and transition surfaces such as lime to prevent the migra-tion of stones onto con-crete.

■ Eliminate slippery sur-faces by grooving or scabbling concrete and using rubber mats at entry/exit areas.In wet conditions, the

usually soft, fine surface layer of tracks will offer less protection to cows’ hooves. This, combined with the increased moisture in cows’ feet, means the chance of sharp stones from base material causing bruising will be greater.

Later in the season, the soles of cows’ hooves become thinner and are even more susceptible to physical damage.

Good stockmanship from early in the season will combat these issues and prevent lameness. This should include:

■ a ‘no-heads up’ policy. Seeing cows with their heads up on the track or yard is a sign of too much pressure

■ allowing cows to walk at their own pace

■ using backing gates correctly – to take up space, not push cows

■ using the top gate the same way every time to ‘sweep forward’ batches of cows

■ ensuring everyone in the team treats the cows with the same care everyday.Tel. 0800 4 324 7969www.dairynz.co.nz/

healthyhoof• Anna Irwin is DairyNZ animal husbandry extension specialist.

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anImaL HeaLtH // 49

A HIGH-RISK farm is one that experiences high rainfall in spring and summer, flooding and water-logged paddocks, maybe has a history of lepto-spirosis infection, has a rodent population, and livestock that may have contact with un-vaccinated animals, especially when grazing off-farm, or with bought in seasonal grazing stock.

For beef farmers the prin-ciples remained the same, vac-cinating calves before the risk of exposure to infection develops.

Ideally dairy grazers coming onto a beef property should have full proof of vaccination prior to arrival, and all beef stock on the property should be vaccinated.

Zoetis market development manager and veterinarian Dr Wayne Clough says research has shown leptospirosis vac-cines were effective in prevent-ing leptospire shedding when administered prior to infection.

“But these are bugs that do not play by the book, and the longer an animal has not been

vaccinated, the more likely it will become infected and shed leptospirosis bacteria.

“Then vaccination is simply too late.”

Zoetis has recently com-pleted trials that confirm the efficacy of Ultravac 7 in 1 when administered to calves at six weeks of age.

“This is to dliver better pro-tection to your stock, yourself and your staff; it’s a nasty dis-ease we have effective vaccines for; it just needs to be headed off earlier,” Clough says.

WHat maKeS farm HIgH-rISK?

Research shows: hit lepto before it’s too latefarmerS are urged to vacci-nate their young stock earlier against Leptospirosis to better protect them-selves, their staff and their animals from the disease.

Animal health company Zoetis is also working with Leptosure to pro-mote the need for earlier vaccination this spring, and a road show is aimed at veterinarians, to lift vaccination programme awareness.

Leptospirosis is often mistaken by farmers for a bad bout of flu, but it can be almost entirely avoided if effective vaccination of livestock takes place.

Dr Roger Marchant, veterinary advisor to the New Zealand Veteri-nary Association’s (NZVA) Leptosure programme, is urging farmers to head off the risk of leptospirosis infection – for themselves, their family, their staff and their animals – by vaccinating ani-mals at the right age.

“The typical pattern for leptospi-rosis vaccination has not changed much over the years. That’s been to vaccinate calves at about six months of age. However we can now be more specific about the timing and vaccina-tion needs to be earlier than this to be fully effective.”

Farmers and veterinarians are in the front line for infection risk with about 120 reported human cases in New Zealand each year. However, as reported at the recent NZVA confer-ence, estimates of under-reporting may mean the number of cases could be up to 40 times greater.

This rate puts New Zealand in the top bracket globally for serious human leptospirosis infections.

It is also a disease with insidious downstream affects through the rural community beyond the farm gate. Back in 2008 a meat worker died from the disease, and process workers have a 1:20 chance of contracting the dis-ease through infected carcasses. The estimated annual incidence in veter-

inarians is 3%. The Leptosure programme

has previously recommended the practice of vaccinating at three to six months. However a revamp of the Lep-tosure guidelines is underway, with new ‘best practice’ vaccina-tion standards coming out later this year. A key aim is to get vac-cinations completed earlier before calves become infected, but not too early since maternal antibodies may interfere with the vaccine.

Concern over the mixed messages behind vaccinations prompted the NZVA to initiate a review by Massey University Epicentre on leptospirosis disease incidence.

This work reported on the possi-bility of increased risk of leptospirosis infections in herds where calves had not been vaccinated until six months of age.

A small pilot study by Massey showed 30% of apparently vacci-nated herds sampled tested positive for leptospirosis, and 13% of cows in these herds could have been shedding the bacteria.

The risk of having a herd with one or more cows shedding leptospirosis bacteria appeared to be associated with the age at which calves were vac-

cinated for the first time. Marchant said the ‘window of

infection risk’ was there when vac-cinations were not done until six months of age.

“An animal may well be infected with leptospirosis prior to that, and even if it does get vaccinated, that will not eliminate the infection.”

From the Massey review the Lep-tosure ‘best practice’ advice now is earlier vaccination than previously recommended, but not too early: for the average mob age of dairy calves the first vaccination needs to be about seven weeks of age on a farm with a high leptospirosis risk.

For a typical dairy farm that equates to 10 weeks after the sea-sonal start of calving as the earliest time, with a second shot adminis-tered four-six weeks after the first.

Even on low risk properties, farm-ers should aim to complete these two shots before 6 months of age.

Roger Marchant

“An animal may well be infected with leptospirosis prior to that, and even if it does get vaccinated, that will not eliminate the infection.”


50 // effLuent & Water management

Use accredited system designersfarmerS SHOuLd choose accredited builders of dairy effluent and irrigation systems to ensure quality plant that complies with regulatory requirements, says IrrigationNZ.

“We’re still seeing too many systems not up to scratch,” says chief executive Andrew Curtis. “The nutrient loading aspects of designs are improving, but pump selection is still often poor, either resulting in insufficient pressure to run the effluent applicator or excessive energy consumption.

“Hydraulic design is also still deficient; proper designs require head loss to be understood – a combination of friction loss in the pipe and elevation.

Companies aren’t always getting it right and it’s costing farmers money and time to resolve, while also exposing farmers to compliance risk.”

For two years, 13 dairy effluent design companies have been through accreditation, and two more promising applications are in process.

“Dairy farmers now have a wide

range of choice of accredited designers so there is no excuse to end up with a system that’s not right for your farm. The consequences of poor design are far reaching particularly in terms of compliance and regulatory penalties,” says Curtis.

Launched not long ago was the Irrigation Design Accreditation

Programme, which integrates with the Farm Dairy Effluent System Design Accreditation Programme. Two applications, both high standard, have been submitted and a decision on these is likely during September.

“We’re really happy with progress,” says Curtis. “We’ve also been promised

applications from all the major irrigation design companies prior to Christmas.”

“We realise accreditation is quite a hurdle and each application requires a lot of work. But it’s one of

those things where critical mass is now building. Being accredited will become the norm soon.”

The updated design code of practice and standards for irrigation forms the basis of the irrigation accreditation programme, whilst the recently reviewed dairy effluent code and

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“We realise accreditation is quite a hurdle and each application requires a lot of work. But it’s one of those things where critical mass is now building. Being accredited will become the norm soon.”

standards does the same for effluent. While both are only voluntary at the moment, Curtis says they have already helped lift the performance bar, standardise designs and improve production and environmental outcomes.

“The codes of practice work hand in hand with accreditation. Both give farmers certainty they will have a system enabling them to correctly manage irrigation and effluent.

“Combined with the industry code of practice, standards and training, an accreditation programme is the best way of improving skill levels and ensuring consistency. ‘Managing within Limits’ means [a lot of speanding] will be needed for on-farm irrigation and effluent infrastructure in the next five to ten years. Without a quality assurance system we may not meet the performance standards required,” Curtis says.

Andrew Curtis

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effLuent & Water management // 51

Solids separator light on storage, fresh water usagegea farm Technolo-gies (GEA) supplies the range of Houle equip-ment, including solids separators, pond pumps and agitation systems.

Solids separation tech-nology, especially, meets the need for managing the effluent that results from intensification. The extra challenge is to deal with greater volumes of solids coming from feed-ing areas.

Solids in a pond (or tank) may be difficult and costly to manage and, over time, may accumulate to a point where a pond’s stor-age capacity is limited.

This raises the case for separating solids from an effluent stream before they enter a storage pond – an obvious application for the Houle slope screen separator. The screen is passive and particularly effective in combination with GEA’s sand sedimen-tation pit, where it results in virtually all solids being removed from the effluent stream.

The slope screen comes in two sizes depending on effluent volumes and processing requirements. The larger 2.4m model can process

up to 140m3 per hour, meaning greater process-ing efficiencies for the larger farms. The process-ing rates depend on efflu-ent consistency.

Yards, feed pads or barns that are flood washed result in effluent typically thinner; this pro-cesses faster over the sep-arator.

For heavier applica-tions where the efflu-ent is in more of a slurry form, the XPress (roller press) separator is rec-ommended. The Xpress, claimed to be unique in New Zealand, is efficient and has low maintenance technology that can pro-duce solids up to 28% dry matter.

Another key benefit of solids separation is the ability to reuse the liquid (green water) for wash-down, helping conserve fresh water.

GEA’s Houle flush system is designed to clean a washdown area by maximising the flush volume over a defined area to effectively clean this every time.

This involves a 300mm valve installed at concrete level which is air operated to start and stop the flush

cycle. The valves operate at 7000L/min, a sufficient flush for proper cleaning. The air operation allows a system to be auto-mated, making it a one push button operation, or allowing the flush cycle to be pre-programmed to

suit a specific wash area. Two flush cycles are

typical with automatic start up and shut off. The first step involves a pre-wet cycle where the valves will all open briefly to wet the area, which minimises manure sticking to con-

crete, especially during hot weather. The next step is the main flush cycle; this cleans the area by alternating flow through the valves and maximis-ing the volume available for each. Tel. 0800 432 327

Houle slope screen separator.

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The EPS Stirrers come in a number of different Hp sizes and all of them are very low kW/Hr, starting at .75kW.

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At Hi-Tech we have built a reputation over 21 years for outstanding innovation and excellence in product design. The CobraTM Travelling Raingun* is our new game changer, with greater spread and no boom arms, the CobraTM Raingun can apply at lower depths and rates than any irrigator you will have experienced before. For more information phone 0800 889 7755 or go to www.hitechenviro.co.nz

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Fence post moves with the flowWHen tOm Pow from HerdHomes caught up with Kerry Powell from Taragate at Central District Field Days, he was on a mission to deal with the problem of floods washing away his fencing.

As a long time ‘greenie’, Tom was keen to protect the waterways from

livestock but was aware that what farmers were being asked to do made no sense as when floodwaters arrive they wash down big drifts of debris that either break or wash out steel posts along with the high tensile wire, taking them into the waterways where they form large

unmanageable balls of debris. These become both an environmental hazard and endanger kayakers, swimmers or other river users. Ignored, they can end up on beaches.

Pow and Powell decided a system was required with posts that could move like reeds in the water so debris could not attach; where the wire used would not allow debris to accumulate to a dangerous size; and where if the wire was to break free, it would be easy to deal with and not cause a long term environmental risk. Further to this, the fence had to be cost effective and quick and economical to maintain or reinstate.

Taragate developed the system and materials and HerdHomes did the trials.

The new system is robust, withstanding river damage and livestock wear and tear, and it meets all Pow’s environmental and practical concerns.

It comprises of two new posts: a new polywire and a special ‘tie’.

The backbone of the Flood Fence is a flexible Flo-Post designed to bend over during flooding and not wash out into the waterways.

When clear of debris, the Flo-Post will spring back to its original position.

A more rigid, but still flexible plastic post is used where anchor points are needed.

A conductive polywire is attached to these posts by a UV resistant cable tie with a measured breaking strain.

While these will hold firm during flooding, they will snap if a large object snags the polywire. This prevents any major damage to the rest of the fence and eases the task of making repairs.

The system is also very quick to install, no tractor or special equipment is needed to drive posts, just a hand held post driver, making it easy and extremely cost effective to erect fences in difficult areas

The system also uses a specially developed highly conductive but biodegradable polywire with a planned limited lifespan. It comes with coloured tracer strands which fade during its lifetime to indicate when the polywire should be replaced.Tel. 07 843 3859www.taragate.co.nz

The Flo-Post is designed to bend over during flooding and not wash out into the waterways.

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Water WILL, over time, contribute to New Zealand’s farming and growing industries raising export earnings from $30 billion a year $60 billion. But this reliance on water also creates tension, says IrrigationNZ.

“To develop agriculture and horticulture and truly realise their potential, we need a more certain investment environment. Farmers, their related industries and the bankers that support them, need clarity on our national and regional management of water.”

About 30 irrigation rep-resentatives on an Irriga-tionNZ tour of Australia in July heard this mes-sage. Helped by spon-sors GHD Ltd and BNZ, the irrigators journeyed along the Murray River to understand the Australian irrigation scheme mod-ernisation process.

“We wanted to observe how the Australians were tracking, as far as irriga-tion infrastructure is con-cerned. The most telling observation was on the need for certainty. For the agriculture industry to prosper, we need reliabil-ity and confidence in our regulatory environment.”

IrrigationNZ says with new schemes like Central Plains Water, Ruataniwha

and Hurunui Water Proj-ect’s Waitohi irrigation and hydro scheme under-way, the irrigation indus-try requires long term and strategic policy decisions to support these long term investment decisions. The intergenerational nature of irrigation schemes must be recognised and pro-vided for.

“The Australian water market model is fre-quently held up as the future of water manage-ment. However, when you look closely, the success of Australia’s water market has only been made pos-sible by the introduction of water permits in per-petuity, the subsequent restructuring of these and storage.

“In Australia, water permits come with differ-ent security levels (high, general and low) and have been unbundled – which means the site-specific take component is sepa-rated from the use volume. This allows greater flex-ibility in permit changes and transfers.

“Take the Murray Dar-ling Basin, where water availability is highly vari-able. Water entitlements have been unbundled into permanent rights for water access and deliv-ery. The delivery right allows water to be sup-plied to a property and is site specific. The access right is the amount that

can be used. However this changes on an annual basis according to the water available.”

IrrigationNZ says there are also different levels of security for access rights. For example in NSW, high, general and supplemen-

tary levels exist. These effectively give a prior-ity of access to water. This gives farmers flexibility.

For example, Coleambally is a low cost irrigation scheme relying on open canals and gravity fed irrigation. As a result most of their farmers are annual cropping enterprises and this have a higher proportion of general security rights in their portfolio. In wet years this allows maximum irrigation but in dry times more money may be made from selling what water they have to higher value land use activities such as permanent horticulture.

If New Zealand is seri-ous about creating an enabling environment for water management, then permits in perpetuity and unbundling must be on the table, it says.

Oz water tour reinforces need for certainty

The main irrigation channel in Colleambally, Australia, under repair. A more certain investment environment has aided irrigation development there.

“We wanted to observe how the Australians were tracking, as far as irrigation infrastructure is concerned. The most telling observation was on the need for certainty.”

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Cavity pumps offer ‘huge’ efficienciesCOrreCt CHOICe of an effluent pump demands scrutiny of a machine’s reliability, repeatability, efficiency, ease of maintenance and cost of ownership, suggests pump maker Pump and Valve Specialities.

The company has developed Sabre progressive cavity pumps to suit dairy-ing applications.

“Our standard range of pumps are available for flow rates from 10m3 to 37m3/hr. And they offer huge energy effi-ciencies over centrifugal pumps,” the company says.

Sabre cavity pumps are said to give a fixed flow rate regardless of pressure. And irrespective of whether a farm’s irri-gator is next to the pond or 400m away, the application rate will continue to be accurate.

This eliminates the need to throttle the pump back when spreading close in, or the need to have an oversized pump to cater for long mainline runs. Being of fixed displacement also makes them an ideal choice for injecting green water into a centre pivot.

Pump and Valve Specialities says its

pumps’ protection ensures years of reli-able operation.

“Our dry run protection (DRP) module monitors the pump housing tem-perature, and any aincrease in tempera-ture caused by dry running will trigger a cutout before damage occurs.

“Also, Sabre pressure protection offers a safeguard to prevent the main line against over-pressurisation during an irrigator blockage or valve closure. Low pressure protection eliminates the risk of flooded paddocks in the event of hydrants being left open or reticulation failing.”

Sabre pumps have universal joints encased in grease filled boots, much like the CV joints on a car. These carry a two-year warranty.

Purchase options range from a basic package (pump, drive and protection module) to turn-key packages including control panels.

Pump and Valve Specialties have four offices nationwide, supporting a dealer network experienced in the supply and installation of Sabre effluent pumps. Tel. 0800 786 774

Fencing floats clear of floodwatersa neW flood fence from McInnes Manufacturing Ltd helps to effec-tively fence waterways or land at risk of flooding, the maker says.

The fencing allows fence wires to rise and float well above flood waters, preventing the wires catching debris and sustaining damage. Clear of the water, electric fences will not short out, so fences in non-flooded areas of the farm will maintain full current.

The flood fence comprises a 1.1m plastic sleeve which slips over the post. The sleeve has an adjustable stop to prevent it from coming off the post. The sleeve fits a post up to 125mm diameter – a number 2 or a small number 1 post. (Sleeves for half round posts and steel standards will be available later in the year.)

At the base of the sleeve an ellipti-cal 20L float gives the required floa-tation to keep the wires above flood level, but offers minimal resistance to the current, the maker says. The float has a fin which rotates with the flow of water to keep the wires taunt and pre-

vent sagging into the waters.Attaching the wires to the sleeve is

simple, and as the entire flood fence is made of polyethylene it provides excellent insulation, no insulators required. The product suits fences with 1 wire or up to 7 wires. For best results use a low resistance polywire.

In many situations there are dips in the terrain. Typically there will be a post at the bottom of the dip and one

on either side. The post at the bottom of a dip will be floating first, so use a bungee or a spring to keep the wires tight as the bottom flood fence rises.

There is also a bung in the float so that where necessary water can be added to give extra weight to keep the bungee tight as the flood recedes and posts in dips drop back to their normal level. Tel. 0800 104 119

10 ROBINSON ST, ASHBURTONPh 03 307 9049 • Fax: 03 307 9047

email: [email protected] website: www.rainer.co.nz

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Effluent value, fert price rises keeping pace – councildaIrY farm effluent is growing in value as its nutrient value keeps pace with rising fertiliser prices, says Waikato Regional Council.

Treat effluent as a fer-tiliser, the council is urging farmers, but manage it carefully because it is not a balanced fertiliser, being high in potassium.

This can lead to higher leaching levels of magne-sium and animal health problems if potassium soil

test levels are high, it says.“You can manage this

risk by increasing the effluent area or by making silage on the effluent area and feeding it out on non-effluent areas of the farm. Applying shed efflu-ent at light rates will ensure stock feed intakes are not adversely affected.

“Managing dairy efflu-ent is also necessary for the health of water-ways and groundwater,

so knowing the regional council’s rules for efflu-ent management is impor-tant.”

Under the Waikato regional plan a farmer may not exceed 25mm per application and 150kg of N from effluent/ha/year. So a farmer must know how much an irrigator is applying and how

concentrated the effluent is, the council says.

Dairy effluent must not discharge into surface water or contaminate groundwater. Having the capacity to store effluent before it is applied to land means effluent doesn’t have to be applied during wet periods when the risk of surface ponding

and runoff is high. This substantially reduces the risk of overflows to surface water. Increasing effluent irrigation area means a farm can:

■ Better manage appli-cations to ensure the

nitrogen loading rate is not exceeded

■ Achieve better nutrient uptake

■ Spread nutrients fur-ther, reducing fertiliser requirements and asso-ciated costs

■ Slow the build up of

potassium in effluent paddocks, reducing risk of animal health prob-lems in early spring

■ Have more flexibility in grazing around effluent applications and safer withholding periods prior to grazing.

■ Test your effluent for nitrogen, phospho-rus, potassium and sulphur.

■ Check irrigated performance by measur-ing the application depth.

■ Adjust irrigator speed to ensure good pas-ture uptake of applied effluent nitrogen.

■ Run irrigators as fast as possible so that effluent application is light.

■ Soil test the effluent area separately from the rest of the farm.

■ Regularly maintain the irrigator, pump and pipes.

■ Expand effluent area if possible.

■ Have holding facilities for effluent so that it can be applied to land at optimal times.

■ Divert rainwater from the farm dairy be-fore it reaches the effluent system.

■ Reduce effluent volume with efficient wash down.

HOW beSt tO manage

Get upto date news at www.ruralnews.co.nzLATEST STORIES EVERY DAY

“Managing dairy effluent is also necessary for the health of waterways and groundwater.”

Treat effluent as fertiliser.

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The ultimate in pond safetyI like the Nevada PondBoom because it’s safer and easier to manage the pump than having it on a floating pontoon.

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Hitting the target

It’S aLL very well insist-ing an irrigator spreads effluent uniformly over the farm when the mixture you send to it varies wildly in its consistency. If your aim is to grow grass and use the nutrient resource effectively, then overall uniformity of application is your target.

Some of you will be dis-covering that unmixed or poorly mixed efflu-ent ponds simply guaran-tee a gradient of effluent nutrient across the farm depending on whether you were pumping a strong brew or a weak brew at the time.

It is a pity the indus-try didn’t recognise this earlier when we were pre-paring the FDE Code of Practice. However, that shouldn’t stop you from

trying to achieve thorough mixing and good spread-ing uniformity when you plan a system.

When the pond is full, aim to mix it well during pump-out, and when the pond is empty make sure that all the solids have gone to grass.

You don’t want islands of solids left to hijack pond volume or to leave you with another solids recovery or spreading task. Factor these points into your list of requirements when you are choosing a design.

There is a tussle going on behind the scenes regarding the accredi-tation of designers. You can see from the rela-tively small number of accredited companies that uptake is slowish. Some of this is expense; some of it is to do with doubts about its ultimate use-

fulness. The important issue is not whether your designer has achieved pass marks in a course of study, but whether the efflu-ent system you installed meets the required stan-dards.

It is the effluent system that actually needs to be reviewed, examined and accredited. This is where a planned ‘warrant of fitness’ will be more important than whether you’ve used an accredited designer. It will give you useful yardsticks by which to measure your design success.

The ultimate test of your system is that it lets you keep all the effluent on your farm and then uses it to grow grass. You should be able to apply effluent to soils that can absorb it when they are able to absorb it.

The amount applied

should be appropriate to the soil type, the crop, the soil moisture deficit and the strength of the effluent. You should choose mixers that homogeneously mix your effluent storage, pumps that deliver the same flow to each hydrant (so that irrigator performance is the same at each hydrant), hydrants that keep effluent in the pipes when they are disconnected, irrigators that spread effluent uniformly and monitoring equipment that watches over the whole operation, and which keeps you advised of what is or what isn’t going on. The planned warrant of fitness should take all these factors into account.

What about sand traps? Put a lot of thought into a good, easy-to-use and effective agitated sand

Stuart reId

removal system. Sand and grit is a small component of effluent but causes nearly all the wear and subsequent maintenance. Your grit removal device should leave you with almost clean grit and sand which can be spread back on to race potholes

On top of these mat-ters, you should strive for equipment that has a guar-antee of success with low

labour input and a low capital cost. (But here you should carefully balance your labour, risk and main-tenance costs against capi-tal. Low cost often means high labour and higher risk, with many regular, irritating, time consuming tasks.)

There are many good individual components you can use to achieve your aims but they don’t

all interact together to produce an integrated system that reduces risk, which uses the resource effectively and which monitor the situation while growing grass.

Examples of a fully integrated installation can be found at www.spitfire.net.nz• Stuart Reid is managing director of Spitfire Revolution.

The ultimate test of your effluent system is that it lets you keep all the effluent on your farm and then uses it to grow grass.

The amount of effluent applied depends on a number of factors.

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Embedded pods irrigate tricky paddocks

an embedded irri-gation system launched at Fieldays this year by RX Plastics fits a specific gap in the market for such equipment, says the com-pany.

The G-Set irrigation system, prompted by feed-back from dairy farmers, offers a “functional system that irrigates more chal-lenging areas,” says RX sales and marketing man-ager Phil Gatehouse.

The system can be installed anywhere deliv-ery pipe can be run, making it suitable for more difficult terrain, hill slopes and irregular shaped pastures.

“G-Set is ideal for irri-gating pivot corners,” says Gatehouse. “The pods and pipe can be installed and

then are run automatically from the house or wher-ever the computer con-troller is located, meaning no additional labour is required to shift or turn them on and off.”

Each of the G-Set pods is set in the ground and protects a sprinkler and a control unit, which may be battery, solar pow-ered or mains supplied. The pods are made of the same robust rotomoulded plastic as K-Line, but are coloured blue – easily seen in a paddock.

“Farmer enquiries have been about difficult areas, and they have com-mented on the low labour input needed as once the G-Set is installed they are remotely controlled.” These controls cause the system to work as pro-grammed, minimising the human error factor.

tOnY HOPKInSOnEach sprinkler operates

sequentially so in 24 hours the complete area is cov-ered and there is no need for a large delivery line.

Hedges or fences do not need to be removed, and the system works on rolling ground in areas not suitable for boom travel.

“This is a significant innovation for New Zea-land farms, given the reli-ance till now on large and

expensive installations of centre pivots or travelling irrigator systems,” Gate-house says.

RX Plastics is gearing up as the irrigating season gets closer.www.rxplastics.co.nzTel. 03 307 9081

RX Plastics marketing manager Phil Gatehouse with the G-set irrigation system.

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The king of pond stirrersOnly from your Nevada NZ distributor.Think your crusted dairy effluent pond is unmixable? Think again. The TurboStir 7000 with Typhoon propeller technology will demolish crust and quickly get the whole pond swirling.

I like the Nevada PondBoom because it’s safer and easier to manage the pump than having it on a floating pontoon.



New stirrer to get monster crust testneVada’S WeLL proven effluent stirrer will be put through its paces this month in a study involving very large and heavily crusted ponds, says Midwest Machinery.

The company says it has identified “some of the country’s most crusted up effluent ponds” to test its new TurboStir 7000 PTO pond stirrer.

It says there will be some big challenges for the machine. The pond dimensions range up to 60 metres square some with crust.

No sweat, it says. The 7.4 metre stirrer will do it thanks to the high performance Typhoon propeller design. “It has the most efficient power-to-output ratio of any unit on the market.”

“This stirrer is an ultimate contractors machine and

suits tractors from 70hp and upwards.”

One of the

ponds likely to be used is about 2500m2 on a dairy farm with approximately 500 cows.

The pond hasn’t been pumped or stirred for quite some time. “This farm has a high input feed system so there’s a lot of dry matter entering the pond – thousands of dollars’ worth of nutrients…..

“But by efficiently agitating the pond, the farmer can utilize this valuable organic fertiliser by spreading it evenly over the pasture in addition to tidying up the pond.

“When you’re only pumping and not stirring, you won’t get a consistent and even spread of nutrients on to the irrigated area.”

The company will consider even more serious challenges. “If you think you’ve got a pond with a thicker crust we’d love to hear from you.”

A report on the experiments will be available in late October.Telephone. 0800 464 393www.nevadanz.co.nz

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Travelling irrigator ‘changes the game’tHe ‘CObra’ travelling irrigator, new from Hi-Tech Enviro Solutions, Morrinsville, stems from “customers’ requests for a raingun that could move itself,” says general manager, Brian Nicholson.

It’s a game-changer, he says. “After a lot of R&D including

sourcing parts from overseas, and

then extensive trialling and getting feedback and suggestions from farmers, we knew the Cobra was special.”

The design is a world first, the company says, and enables farmers to put on dairy effluent at extremely low depths and rates.

And it incurs none of the

problems inherent in long boom arms on normal travelling irrigators.

It has a wide range of travel speeds, can do full or part circles, and can vary its performance to suit different parts of the farm.Tel. 07 889 7755www.hitechenviro.co.nz

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Irrigating effluent

traVeLLIng IrrIga-tOr application depth varies according to the speed they travel (faster speed = lower depth applied). Good practice is to run the irrigator on its fastest setting and to ensure the drag hose is laid out correctly for opti-mal travelling irrigator performance.

Travelling irrigators are not recommended for use on slopes greater than 7˚, as these soils are cat-egorised as high risk. Low application systems such as sprinklers are preferred

to cover these areas.The drag hose can be

very heavy, especially if it is too long; this can cause excessive wear on the gearing and the winch wire and over-application of effluent. Keeping the hose loop tight behind the irri-gator will reduce drag. See the sidebar for additional tips.Tips for operating low application sprinkler systems

Low rate systems such as sprinklers and pods suit a wide range of situations, and are particularly useful for irrigating on high-risk soils because low rates of effluent can be applied

more often. Sprinkler systems usu-

ally have fixed applica-tion rates. The application depth is controlled by the length of time the effluent is applied. Sprinkler sys-tems with a timing control can be pulsed, e.g. 15 min-utes on and 45 minutes off, giving control over the total depth applied and the hourly rate. Spacing and pressure must be correct with these systems.

Any reduction in pres-sure at the irrigator can result in effluent being applied at higher applica-tion depths and rates. This can result from:

Low pump capacity or

treVOr fOLeY

■ Ensure the pressure is correct and consistent at the irrigator to achieve correct application depth and rate along the whole run and at all points of the farm.

■ Don’t cut any nozzles. Replace them when they are damaged and use Camlock fittings for easy removal. It is good practice to change the nozzles on the travel-ling irrigator when you change the rubber ware in your farm dairy.

■ If you are getting blocked nozzles, the issue starts at the inlet. Good practice is to ensure no rubbish enters the system. Screening through a well-designed sand trap is a good measure.

■ Clean the sand trap regularly.

■ Maintain and service the irriga-tor regularly including greasing weekly, covering all nipples on the applicator. Hose the traveller regularly with clean water.

■ Anchor the irrigator correctly e.g. to a strainer post and away from waterways.

■ Set the irrigator at the fastest

speed to reduce application depth and rate.

■ Devise an irrigation and mainte-nance plan.

■ Correctly inflate wheels to reduce drag on the irrigator.

■ Visual checking of systems is im-portant: check for leaks or dam-age by walking along the lines. Repair damage immediately.

■ Feed the winch rope (dragline) onto the winch drum from the sides, not the centre. A wire winder fitted to the irrigator is a good optional extra.

Drag hose and layout ■ Lay out correctly: check that the

gap between the dragline and drag hose is less than 3m.

■ Ensure the drag hose isn’t too long because greater length cre-ates weight and therefore greater drag, reducing pressure at the irrigator. 150-200m long is good.

■ Avoid snags and don’t allow the drag hose to rub against sharp objects.

quICK tIPS fOr aPPLICatOrS

poor pump performance • Trevor Foley is Dairynz environmental extension specialist. This article first appeared in Getting the Basics Right 2013 issue.

Travelling irrigators are not recommended for use on slopes greater than 70.


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Practical tips to make irrigators workanaLYSIS Of signifi-cant effluent non-com-pliance information from regional councils has high-lighted the importance of correct effluent irrigation.

All people in the farm team are responsible for ensuring the effluent system is operated suc-cessfully including the owner, sharemilker, man-ager and staff.

A detailed analysis of the reasons for significant non-compliance by Nicola Waugh, from AgFirst Waikato, identified pond-ing as a major issue. This study, funded by DairyNZ, collated the compliance data from regional coun-

cils nationwide. Ponding, and the

causes of ponding, such as lack of sufficient stor-age or over-application of effluent, accounted for at least half of significant non-compliance across many regions.

The report highlights the importance of care-fully managing the pro-cess of applying effluent to land. Is the irrigator well maintained? Does everyone in the farm team know when to irrigate and where? Applying effluent

Application depth is the amount of effluent applied at one time. This is the same as measuring the amount of rain e.g. 20mm. Applying to the appropri-

ate application depth depends on a range of factors includ-ing nutrient content of effluent, regu-latory conditions and soil and land-scape features. It is good practice to apply lower depths more often, for exam-ple 10mm in one applica-tion.

It may help if you think about applica-tion rate as like a summer shower or as a thunder-storm. If 20mm is applied in 20 minutes it’s more likely to be a thunder-storm compared to a

20mm application over four hours.

Adjust your application rate for site-specific con-ditions to lower the risk of ponding and runoff.

treVOr fOLeY

For example, a lower rate would be more appropri-ate on slopes and ‘tight’ soils, and rates should reduce when soils are wet.

Above is the typical spray pattern from a trav-elling irrigator

The irrigator in this graph has applied effluent over a run, with buckets below it, to capture efflu-

ent application depths on two irrigator settings, a slow speed (in red) and a fast speed (in blue).

The increased speed (and pressure) of the fast run has had an influence on the application distri-bution uniformity – mean-ing the distribution was more even across the buckets.

Distribution unifor-mity is very important. An application depth of 40mm on the outside of the wetted width will cause ponding and waste valuable nutrients.• Trevor Foley is Dairynz environmental extension specialist. This article first appeared in Getting the Basics Right 2013 issue.

Keep up with the latest stories from by following us atGET SOCIAL WITH DAIRYNEWS

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Trevor Foley

A typical spray pattern from a travelling irrigator

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Council signals irrigator checksHOrIZOnS regIOnaL Coun-cil staff will inspect effluent irriga-tors this spring, a move supported by Federated Farmers.

Regulatory manager Richard Mun-neke says the council aims to help farmers achieve an even application of effluent to land, and to point out the productivity gains that result from correct spreading.

“The team aims to encourage and promote best industry practice. Duri-ing trials last year we noticed that irri-gators were not always spreading the effluent as well as they could be.

“Often with relatively minor and inexpensive adjustments this can be rectified to enable better nutrient utilisation.”

Munneke says at times during the trials an irrigator would exceed the 40mm threshold, which is three times the consented limit.

“Where we find gross over-appli-cations like this it will be recorded as non-compliant.

“But even then the farmer can work with the dairy team to remedy the problem and get their irrigator

working as efficiently as possible without a large cost.

“There should be few gross over-applications beyond this threshold; 12 to 14mm has been identified as indus-try best practice.”

Manawatu-Rangitikei Federated Farmers president Andrew Hoggard says irrigator efficiency is the key to further improving water quality in the region.

“I support Horizons in its move to look into irrigator efficiency. Since moving from the old two pond system to spreading to land over a decade ago, we’ve seen an improvement in water quality across the region, and we will see an equally good improve-ment by a gradual change to newer modern spreaders capable of achiev-ing lower application depths.”

Hoggard says on his own farm he noticed improvements when he replaced an old spreader five years ago with a new spreader capable of achieving 8mm application depths.

“I’m using nutrients much more efficiently, with a cost saving, by not needing to import nitrogen onto the

effluent area, and the paddocks are ready for grazing much sooner. Our spreader has paid for itself many times over.

“Farmers wondering whether their spreader is up to the standards should take up the services offered by DairyNZ, Fonterra or Horizons, to check your system before inspec-tion day. “

Though the council will not issue a significant non-compliance notice for a spreader that doesn’t make the grade, it will nevertheless issue a non-compliance and associated costs, Hoggard says.

“But if you put your hand up first you’ll get a helping hand and sugges-tions as to how to improve. If your spreader’s marginal, swap to a newer generation effluent spreader; you won’t be disappointed. I say this from practical experience.”

Munneke says because farmers last season achieved a 93% compli-ance rate, the council will move fur-ther into an advisory role, rather than simply a monitoring role. Tel. 0508 800 800

Farmers in Horizons Regional Council zone face effluent irrigator inspections this season.

For more information phone 0508 476 278 or visit www.smartfarmsystems.co.nz

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62 // maCHInerY & PrOduCtS

No netwrap in new film-on-film wrapperbaLer and wrapper specialist McHale says its new Fusion 3 Plus baler-wrapper with ‘film-on-film’ technology makes better silage than conventional balers and saves time and money.

The brand is distributed in New Zea-land by Power Farming.

The company’s sales and marketing manager, Paul McHale, contrasts the new machine with conventional baler-wrapper technology, in which the bale is first secured with net or string then transferred to a wrapping table for seal-ing with plastic for fermentation.

The McHale system eliminates the use of netwrap, instead applying plastic directly to the bale in the bale chamber.

New Zealand was a critical testing ground for the new concept baler, Paul McHale says. The company’s manag-

ing director, Padraic McHale, and engi-neers, spent 12 weeks on farm in New Zealand trialling and refining the pre-production versions of the new concept machine. Several Kiwi contractors ran prototype machines last season.

“These machines worked well and have since been put into production,” McHale says. “Now 20% of the new Fusion 3 machines working in Europe this season are being supplied with film-on-film instead of net wrap.

“We have been working on our film-on-film system for four years and once farmers have experienced the increased quality that our system delivers, they do not want to return to more traditional methods.”

Power Farming machinery division general manager Graeme Leigh says

when a traditional baler applies net or twine, the bale expands by a couple of inches before the plastic is applied.

“When the plastic wrap is applied in the bale chamber, it does not stretch so the bale does not expand. The bottom line is that more air is excluded, the bale is denser and the quality of the silage is significantly better. Depending on the number of layers you can apply, you could save $1.00-$2.00 per bale.

“Without netwrap, feed out is easier and faster, especially if you are using one of the new bale slicers, and you only have one form of waste to deal with, which makes recycling easier.”

Paul McHale says the company’s engineers had to make several techni-cal innovations so that the Fusion 3 Plus could effectively and consistently apply

net replacement film.“The Fusion integrated baler wrap-

per can deliver 10% more output than other baler wrappers on the market. It was important for us to get the film working well so that it was reliable and did not reduce the baler’s output as it passed through different crop types and as the temperature changes over a day’s work.

“The Fusion 3 Plus offers contrac-tors a new service they can provide to differentiate themselves from their competition.” It also gives farmers

and contractors who need to bale hay, straw or other stalky crops the option to use netwrap because the chamber is designed to handle net or plastic.

Power Farming expects half its McHale orders for the 2013-14 season will be Fusion 3 Plus machines.

Leigh says McHale is also about to release its new variable chamber baler/wrapper in New Zealand market. A dem-onstration version of the Vario machine will be working this summer.Tel. 07 902 2200www.powerfarming.co.nz

The McHale Fusion 3 Plus film-on-film wrapping system delivers higher quality silage and makes recycling easier.

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Small, medium tractors work harder with more comfortneW SmaLL and medium-frame tractors from the John Deere 6R series tractor range are now available in Australia and New Zealand.

Including these, nine models are now avail-able sized 78-154kW (105-210hp). All 6R models offer new levels of power, performance and oper-ator comfort, includ-ing improved suspension and cab visibility, more powerful hydraulics and increased lift capacities.

The small frame 6105R, 6115R and 6125R models are equipped with a Stage IIIB 4.5L 4-cyl-inder John Deere Pow-erTech Plus engine rated from 78-154kW. The mak-er’s fuel efficient diesel-only PowerTech engines meet the latest emission standards. The medium frame 6130R model is powered by a 96kW 4-cyl-inder engine mounted on a 6-cylinder frame; the other two medium-frame models, the 6140R and 6150R, are powered by Stage IIIB 6.8L 6-cylinder John Deere PowerTech Plus engine rated at 103kW and 110kW, respec-tively.

These new tractors also have a longer wheelbase to provide improved stability for loader applications. In addition, a higher permis-sible weight and payload allow bigger and heavier implements to be carried.

An integrated front hitch with a lift capacity of 4000kg and a new front PTO are also available ex-factory for the first time on 6R series tractors.

The front hitch is com-patible with the new John Deere H Series front loaders, designed for max-imum visibility and to match the new tyre sizes and tractor chassis dimen-sions.

Transmission options include the newly designed 24-speed Direct-Drive, which combines the handling comfort of a steplessly variable shift transmission (IVT) with the power efficiency of a mechanical unit, but saving fuel – up to 10g/kWh compared to an IVT.

The new 6R Com-fortView cab has 20% more space and a similar increase in visibility.

It offers a new level of operator comfort, with features such as the full-colour GreenStar 3 CommandCenter display with optional touch screen and video capability, integrated climate and radio controls, Bluetooth connectivity with SIM card access and an optional panorama roof. The display is compatible with ISOBUS and tractor-implement automation (TIA) applications.

Further options include the new adap-

tive hydropneumatic cab suspension (HCS), plus Triple Link Suspension (TLS) for the front axle, to provide optimum trac-tion and operator comfort. A new versatile lighting system also delivers 185% more light than previous models.www.JohnDeere.co.nz

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The greenest choice

a COmPanY making biodegradable skincare products says it’s “the greenest choice”.

Earthwise says its products are grey water and septic tank safe and suitable for use on lifestyle blocks or farms.

“As with all Earthwise products, the range is without parabens, artificial colouring, toxic petro-chemicals, lauryl sulphates or animal sulfates. Addi-tionally, all products from the Earthwise range are biodegradable.”

The Earthwise bodywash and soap range is for-mulated with Vitamin E to gently cleanse and nour-ish, without stripping skin of moisture. Earthwise’s natural cleansing bar soaps are free of toxic chemi-cals and artificial colourants.

Earthwise’s Body range includes shampoo, con-ditioner, body wash, cleansing handwash, handwash refills and naturally fragranced soap bars.

Scalable design inspires elegancetHe fIrSt of three ‘concept’ cars from Volvo springs from the compa-ny’s new ‘scalable prod-

uct architecture’ (SPA), “revealing design possibil-ities,” the company says.

The new Volvo Concept

Coupé “showcases how design builds emotion into the Volvo brand and points towards the next genera-

tion of Volvo models, start-ing with the forthcoming XC90 in 2014.

“The Volvo Concept Coupé is no futuristic dream car. It [shows off ] our new architecture: the confident stance, the pro-portions and the most prominent design signa-tures.”

Developed in-house for Volvo Cars only, the SPA “liberates Volvo’s design-ers and engineers from the limitations of previous cross-brand platforms”.

“The new Volvo Con-cept Coupé reveals how we could shape our cars from now on…. We add

emotional value to the Volvo brand.”

Visual impact is greatest when viewing the Volvo Concept Coupé from the side, a spokesman says. A low bonnet, roof, and five-spoke, 21-inch wheels resemble an elegant Gran Tourer.

Other design features include new topography on the bonnet and the ‘floating’ grille, flanked by headlights featuring new T-shaped DRL light guides. The DRL lights are distinctive elements in the new design direction of Volvo Cars.

eCHOeS tHe ICOnIC P1800

THE CONCEPT Coupé has elements that echo the design of the Volvo P1800 from the 1960s.

“It is a car designer’s duty to reflect and incorporate design signatures that are vital parts of the company’s heritage,” says a spokesman.

“The P1800 is an iconic Volvo, renowned for its beautiful forms and detailing. However, using elements from the P1800 exterior and interior has nothing to do with being retro. We are using these subtle links to create a future where beauty becomes a recognised part of Volvo’s identity.” Inside, refined, handcrafted elements such as a leather instrument panel, inlays made of naturally aged wood and the dark blue woven carpets are blended with machined metal details.”

“Handcrafted crystal is one of the finest examples of high-quality Scandinavian design and I love the idea of bringing it into the car. The prominent position of the gear-leaver is the perfect place for this sparkling sensation,” says Robin Page, design director interior at Volvo Car Group.

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Mixer works faster, gives better resultstHe feed mixing task that once took a Canter-bury farmer 35-40 minutes to do with a paddle mixer is now taking only 10 min-utes, says Webbline Agri-culture, the supplier of the farm’s new machine.

Mid-Canterbury farm-ers Ross and Trent Hibell milk 940 cows on 200ha near Ashburton. A mixer wagon they hired for six months last year proved unequal to the task – improving production, but

running only slowly and struggling to mix bales.

When the pair saw a BvL mixer at Lincoln Field Days they ordered a 27m3 model. While awaiting its delivery the farm is using a 20m3 BvL mixer, and it’s impressive, says Trent Hibell.

“We are feeding about two loads a day with the BvL: a mix of maize, grass silage, palm kernel and ryegrass straw.

“We are doing a com-plete mix in no more than 10 minutes versus our old paddle mixer’s 35-40 min-utes, and it produces a mix inferior to that from the BvL.”

Hibells are powering the BvL with a 120hp John Deere 6530.

Webbline says that,

comparing the BvL to sev-eral mixer wagons used in recent months, Hibell has noticed a difference.

Says Trent Hibell, “The smaller 15m3 mixer Webbline loaned us before this BvL was available, took more power and didn’t mix anywhere near as well. Especially when mixing straw, it wanted to throw it out the top… which proves not all vertical mixers are created equal. A fuel

consumption meter on the tractor showed that with the 15m3 machine we were burning 16-17L of diesel an hour versus the BvL with 5m3 cubic metres more capacity using 14L per hour.”

Straw bale processing was said to have been fast.

“We load in two big squares of straw and after about two minutes it’s broken down enough to start loading the silage. The auger design of the BvL means the mix is con-stantly being drawn down instead of trying to boil over the top.”

The BvL capacity is said to be a big time saver. “With the paddle mixer, even though it was the same volume as the BvL at 5.8 tonnes of feed, we

struggled to get a consis-tent mix, whereas with the BvL we are comfortably mixing 8.4 tonne, mixed more consistently and in quarter the time,” Hibell says.

BvL was among the

first companies making mixers in the 1970s and the brand is now a leader in Germany, says Web-bline Agriculture sales manager Glen Malcolm.Tel. 0800 932 254www.webbline.co.nz

Easy to drive… the JD 6530 can mix 8.5 tonnes of feed, no problem.

Trent Hibell of Ashburton is impressed with the BvL V-Mix 20.

“We are feeding about two loads a day with the BvL: a mix of maize, grass silage, palm kernel and ryegrass straw.”

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Sporty hatch uses less fueltHe KIa Cerato sedan has been joined by a 5-door hatchback model in New Zealand, adding more practicality, as well as sports-oriented design flare, says the company.

The Cerato 5-door is larger than the model it replaces, sitting on a 2700mm wheelbase. It also has features including

SatNav for the first time in this model, a more com-fortable ride, adjustable steering and new 1.8L and 2L engines .

The smoother, more aerodynamic shape has cut wind drag and there-fore fuel consumption and wind noise at higher speeds.

Since the sedan was

launched on world mar-kets in the second quar-ter of this year, sales of the Cerato (also known as Forte in the US and Canada) have lifted.

International sales for the first six months of 2013 show the Cerato/Forte is 13.7% ahead of the same period last year

“That’s an extraor-dinary result when you consider that the 5-door model had practically run

out during the last couple of months and we could only offer the sedan,” says Todd McDonald, general manager of Kia Motors New Zealand. “That demand indicates the high level of customer accep-tance for the new Cerato and bodes well for the 5-door model.”

McDonald puts the demand for new Cerato down to design and price: it starts at $29,990 + ORC.

New arrival has wider appealtHe KIa Cerato/Forte has achieved 2.6 million sales since its 2004 launch, including 445,000 in 2011 when the second-generation model made up 18% of Kia’s total worldwide sales.

And the all-new Cerato/Forte sedan, launched this autumn, has further raised sales, lifting 13.7% for the first six months of 2013, compared to the same period last year.

Now a 5-door model has joined the Cerato sedan that arrived in New Zealand in May and will be followed by the 2-door Koup later this year, or early in 2014.

With a sportier profile and European-inspired styl-ing, the new Cerato 5-door hatchback is longer and wider than the current model, with an extended wheelbase. It has a re-engineered body shell structure and better quality, upgraded equipment, more convenience and safety fea-tures, a more spacious cabin and an upgraded powertrain said to give class-leading fuel economy.

“This couldn’t have come soon enough,” says Todd McDonald, general manager of Kia Motors New Zealand.

“We have experienced unprecedented demand for the sedan model since it was introduced in May and there is high expectation for 5-door Cerato, a volume seller for us in the C-segment of the market.”

The result of 42 months of design, engineering and development work and a spend of 300 billion Korean Won (NZ$320 million), the third-generation Cerato model is made at Kia’s Hwasung factory in Korea.

“We are confident that the new Cerato… will attract existing and new customers,” says McDonald. “It’s room-ier, more practical and has some great features.”

The new Cerato has been created to appeal to current Cerato owners and people down-sizing.

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On our way to a new season

www.lely.com innovators in agriculture

Are you reAdy?Each farm has its demands and you have your own ideas on how to get the best results from your forage harvesting. Therefore, Lely offers a wide range of machinery giving you, the farmer or contractor, the choice to suit your needs.

Call Lely New Zealand Ltd NOW (07) 850 40 50, or email [email protected]

HARVEST RESULTS.

Restricted Veterinary Medicine. Available only under veterinary authorisation.

Your vet knows the science and benefits behind treating endometritis and how it can add value to your farming operation. We entrust METRI-CLEAN to your veterinarian - your animal health expert. The Metricheck™ device is a registered trademark of SIMCRO Ltd.

It’s not easy to see exactly what’s going on inside your cows and whether their gears are in order or are at risk of being infected with endometritis. This infection remains hidden and animals can show little or no external symptoms. Up to 20% of your herd are at risk of developing endometritis post calving, leading to reduced conception rates and therefore fewer days in milk and increased culling. This means a potential loss of revenue of thousands.

To avoid endometritis becoming a costly issue on your farm, the best practice is:A. Identify, Record, Metricheck™ and Treat all of your ‘at risk’ cows B. Have your veterinarian Metricheck™ your whole herd in 2-weekly batches from

2 weeks post-calving, C. Your veterinarian will treat all cows that show any signs of pus with METRI-CLEAN

which is introduced by passing a pipette into the infected uterus of the cow.

METRI-CLEAN is made in New Zealand and is the only intra-uterine treatment available in both a single syringe treatment and multi-dose presentations. If you’re looking for an endometritis treatment that delivers benefits to your farm speak to your veterinarian about METRI-CLEAN.

to beat endometritisis your herd geared up

and earn you more?

METRI-CLEAN Increased revenue Improved fertility Decreased calving intervals Extended lactation Less stress on cow and farmer

beating endometritis has big beneFits:

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To help your calves reach target weight you need to use the right drench at the right time. COOPERS oral combination drenches contain levamisole – the active that’s most effective for targeting Cooperia in young cattle. And by choosing an oral combination, you’ll provide reliable delivery AND reduce the risk of worm resistance worsening on your farm. For advice on best-practice drenching, visit www.coopersonline.co.nz or scan the code to take you straight there.

dairy news 10 sept 2013

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