Data sharing initiative wins national award for saving farmers time
The work Fonterra has done with Ballance Agri-Nutrients Ltd, LIC and Ravensdown to save farmers time through better data connections has been recognised with a national award.
With winter around the corner, LIC says farm staff are busy tending to bulls to ensure they capture the vital semen needed for New Zealand’s dairy herd.
Through artificial insemination, over 500 bulls have the role of getting millions of dairy cows pregnant each year, by producing five million straws of semen, thus helping maintain our milk supply.
The importance of dairy has arguably never been greater with the Ministry for Primary Industries expecting dairy exports to rise 6.3% to $19.2 billion for the year to June 2020. Domestically, Kiwis consume 400 million litres of milk each year.
Enabling this supply are bulls farmed by LIC at two farms in Newstead, near Hamilton, and one at Awahuri in the Manawatu. In total over 1,000 bulls are overseen by LIC farm manager Phil McKinnon who leads a team of 21 across all of LIC’s farming operations.
The tending to the animals to ensure continued semen supply and animal welfare means the daily feeding of bulls, some of which weigh in excess of a tonne (1,000kg) with supplement fed during the recent drought.
The team is undertaking regular ‘collections’ of bull semen for winter-supply for farmers doing artificial inseminations in June and July, and for export ahead of the more busy spring mating season from September to December.
McKinnon says his farm team’s biggest challenge in recent weeks has been training the new bull calves that arrived on-farm earlier this year.
“These calves are deemed the newest genetics and therefore likely to be among the best available in the industry. They’re referred to as sire proving scheme (SPS) calves because the worth of their genetics is yet to be ‘proven’ to the industry.”
McKinnon says the first focus for the newest intake of SPS bull calves, numbering about 220, is orientating them with their new surroundings and their roles.
With collections from these young bulls scheduled to begin in June the clock is ticking, says McKinnon.
However, his team is on track to ensure semen gets on-farm for cows to get in-calf this year and ensure milk keeps flowing.
Managing director of Woolover Ltd, David Brown, has put a lot of effort into verifying what seems intuitive, that keeping newborn stock's core temperature stable pays dividends by helping them realise their full genetic potential.
Within the next 10 years, New Zealand agriculture will need to manage its largest-ever intergenerational transfer of wealth, conservatively valued at $150 billion in farming assets.
Boutique Waikato cheese producer Meyer Cheese is investing in a new $3.5 million facility, designed to boost capacity and enhance the company's sustainability credentials.
OPINION: The Government's decision to rule out changes to Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) that would cost every farmer thousands of dollars annually, is sensible.
Compensation assistance for farmers impacted by Mycoplama bovis is being wound up.
Selecting the reverse gear quicker than a lovestruck boyfriend who has met the in-laws for the first time, the Coalition Government has confirmed that the proposal to amend Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) charged against farm utes has been canned.
OPINION: Years of floods and low food prices have driven a dairy farm in England's northeast to stop milking its…
OPINION: An animal activist organisation is calling for an investigation into the use of dairy cows in sexuallly explicit content…