Inside the Southland Dairy Farm Where Robots and Pasture Work Together
In Dacre, near Invercargill in New Zealand’s South Island, Bruce Dinnington is running a dairy operation unlike any other.
DairyBase is New Zealand’s largest and longest-running dairy benchmarking service.
The tool supports practical decision-making across profitability, production and emissions. Its comprehensive datasets are used by farmers, government, industry, academia and financial institutions to benchmark, inform and support policy, advocacy and business matters
MINDA is a herd management system that helps farmers record, view and share real-time animal information to support on-farm decisions.
From this month farmers can connect their MINDA account with DairyBase.
Once connected, some of the herd data in MINDA will be automatically uploaded into DairyBase, reducing the amount of manual data entry required from farmers and advisors.
DairyBase manager Jodie Goudswaard says the data integration is a strong example of DairyNZ and LIC bringing their farm systems and credible, evidence-based approach together to benefit farmers.
“DairyNZ is continually seeking opportunities to make farmers’ lives easier, and reducing duplication of information is an important part of that. This is one of the most significant physical data integrations we’ve delivered into DairyBase,” she says.
“By securely using herd information farmers have already provided to LIC, we’re able to prefill up to 30% of DairyBase’s required physical information, including stock and herd records, reproduction and health. That means less time spent entering data and more time focused on understanding farm performance and identifying opportunities for improvement.
“Selected farmers have tested the integration on farm and provided positive feedback, reporting that it has already saved them heaps of time. Over the coming months, we will add more data integrations with MINDA, making the process even more streamlined,” she says.
LIC’s head of farm software, Blair Smith, says farmers expect the information they record once, to work across the tools they use every day.
“This integration is another step towards a more connected farm ecosystem, reducing double handling and making it easier for farmers to get value from the information they already record in MINDA.”
