EIGHTEEN young farmers from south-west Victoria recently returned from a Study Tour to New Zealand. Their goal?
To learn more about key developments in the dairy industry over there, and how this may influence their farming practices at home, now and into the future.
The trip was a collaboration between the DemoDAIRY Foundation (DDF) and WestVic Dairy’s Young Dairy Network. Thirteen farms/industry events were attended during the five-day tour. Each visit was selected to highlight one or more of the three main focuses, those being:
• Environmental stewardship – adapting to changes in government legislation and consumer expectations
• Embracing technology – including Halter virtual fencing and app based effluent management
• Pasture utilisation – profitable milk production from home-grown feed
WestVic Dairy’s Matt Wood co-facilitated the tour:
“It’s well known that the New Zealand dairy industry has been impacted by changes to legislation around the use of nitrogen – every farm now has a maximum use of 190kg of N per hectare per year. But they also have a significant focus on all nutrients entering and leaving the property, and each farm has a Farm Environment Plan and an Animal Wellbeing Plan.
“With it likely that regulations here in Australia will get tighter in the future, it was a fantastic insight for participants to see how Kiwi farmers were adapting to these changes,” Mr Wood said.
Several of the farms visited are utilising Halter cow collars for virtual fencing, along with the more well-known health and heat detection features. This technology significantly reduces the hours spent droving cattle and setting up strip fences, along with improving pasture consumption – as it is so easy to allocate more or less as needed.
There were many highlights which included; visiting Owl Farm, a demonstration farm at Cambridge. Here they are leading the way in environmental sustainability, measuring carbon on-farm and reducing emissions on a per kilogram of milk solids basis; visiting Pete Morgan, an early adopter of Halter as well as a keen advocate for getting young people into dairy and supporting them in different pathways; and seeing a beautiful herd of Jerseys at Mary and Walter’s farm which sits two metres below sea level. The cows produce an impressive 110% of their body weight whilst stocked at over four cows per hectare.
Along with assisting with travel arrangements and bus hire, the Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC) hosted the group at its headquarters near Hamilton. Seventy five percent of cows in New Zealand are bred to LIC genetics, with its compact, efficient, Kiwi cross perfect for utilising pasture and fitting into an extensively seasonal calving system. With only 5% of the country’s milk being consumed domestically, the vast majority of herds calve in late winter/early spring, ready to take advantage of the lush spring pasture.
Mary Faherty, 2IC at Dixie Park farm participated in the tour:
“It was a fantastic trip to be part of. It highlighted the differences as well as the similarities our countries face producing milk.
“The lack of grain being fed, lower yields per cow and the extensive use of once-a-day milking were quite different. However, increasing land prices due to competing industries, the difficulties of getting young people into the industry and the lack of good labour are very similar to at home.
“The farmers we visited were very knowledgeable and happy to share the details of their businesses, which gave us a great insight. It was also interesting to hear about other avenues into business ownership – such as contract milking.
“It was a great tour. I have experienced so much from inspirational farmers, all of which I can take back to work, where I can share what I have learned. Thanks to DemoDAIRY and WestVic for making it possible. I’d strongly advise young farmers to take the opportunity to attend similar trips in the future,” said Ms Faherty.
