Tuesday, 15 September 2020 08:55

Advisory group for winter grazing

Written by Peter Burke

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Southland's winter grazing saga is set to continue.

An advisory group will be formed to advise the Government on winter grazing rules proposed for Southland.

In another twist to the ongoing winter grazing saga in Southland, Environment Minister David Parker and Minister of Primary Industries Damien O’Connor met with a group of Environment Southland council executives, farming and sector leaders and Fish & Game to try and find ways of resolving the impasse over the implementation of the new freshwater regulations.

The meeting of ministers and other interested parties was apparently organised by a group of local farmers who wanted to voice their concern over some aspects of the regulations. Federated Farmers representatives, including Bernadette Hunt, were present, but they did not initiate the meeting. She says the farmers who called the meeting voiced the same concerns that they have making to Minister Parker.

During the meeting, there was an agreement to form a local advisory group to be facilitated by Environment Southland, which would provide advice into the national implementation group established by Minister Parker last week.

Environment Southland chairman Nicol Horrell said the meetings were very constructive and he looked forward to working with the ministers further as they worked through the new legislation. He says everyone wants to ensure water quality in the region is improved.

“The ministers acknowledged the progress that’s already been made here in Southland with farm plans [for] intensive winter grazing,” he says.

One of the farmers present, Tony Cleland, a farmer and chairman of FMG, says while the process has been challenging, the group has established a pragmatic way forward, thanks to collaborative input from farmers, industry groups, council and ministers. He says it’s encouraging that a local group of farmers will be working with Environment Southland on the rule changes.

“The conversation was constructive and we will continue to work, as a group, on this issue as we seek solutions as a sector. We see the implementation groups and councils as key in the rollout of these regulations,” he says.

But what is not clear is just who will be on the new group, its power and how this will affect the individual advocacy of Federated Farmers and other industry groups.

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Designed to connect data from a range of on-farm equipment and suppliers into one management system, it creates a real-time decision-support platform, to make the farmer’s life easier, the herd healthier and the farm more profitable, says Lely.

Developed over a 24-month period, with over 100 test farmers in seven countries, working with 75 engineers, designers, farm management advisors, veterinarians and AI specialists, the new application will eventually replace the current Lely T4C management system. It uses smart algorithms and the cloud to deliver data that is processed into actionable information that is always accessible on any device in a user-friendly way.

Lely claims the Horizon application unburdens farmers from routine decision making and helps them optimise their workloads, using integrated routines based on easily scheduled cow ‘touches’, create logical and more efficient workflows. It is also possible to assign a certain task to an employee and to schedule a time slot for the cow touch, rather than analysing different reports and filtering long lists.

Horizon is also able to connect and combine data from non-Lely sources into a complete solution for the farmer removing the need to enter the same data twice, while scrutinising individual data streams in different applications will no longer be necessary. Currently, connections with farming applications such as Dairy Comp, Uniform-Agri, CRV and Herde already enable farmers to synchronise information about calving and inseminations between applications. Lely’s ambition is to connect with more partners over time, to hand the farmer more smart data.

To ensure full support in the migration to Lely Horizon, existing Lely T4C customers will be personally informed by their Lely Center before the end of 2020.

The migration is planned in a phased approach, from country to country, over the year 2021.

Also launched at the event, Lely Exos is an autonomous concept for harvesting and feeding fresh grass to the herd.

The company suggests that feeding fresh grass makes better use of available roughage, suggesting “fresh” has between 10 and 20% more nutritional value than grass silage, as there are minimal losses typically seen during mowing, tedding, raking, harvesting and feeding.

Lely suggests that feeding fresh grass over an extended season reduces the amount of silage that has to be conserved, reduces the need for concentrates and bought-in feed and increase the margin made on each litre of milk produced.

Based around an all-electric vehicle that mows and feeds, Exos is light weight and uses soil friendly technology, that can be exploited throughout the growing season. Design to work 24/7 as feed requirements change, the system places no constraints on labour or time, while it is also designed to work in tandem with the Lely Vector automatic feeding systems.

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