While the venue, Gore, was once hardcore sheep and beef country, with some cropping on the lowland, dairying is back in a big way.
An entire session in the first morning is dedicated to ‘Dairying in Southland – Challenges’ and even the afternoon field trip – to a deer, sheep and dairy grazing property – has a dairy link in that it’s headed ‘Responding to competing land-use change’.
The second day’s field trip has a more direct dairy focus, with a visit to Nithdale Station, a well-known stud and commercial sheep and beef property which recently converted a block to dairy. “It’s fairly high and exposed for dairying,” notes organising committee member and dairy farmer from West Otago, Craig Tomsett.
Parallel sessions on the second morning also promise detailed dairying content, focussing on use of brassicas and other crops in the industry, and wintering solutions including housing.
Local farmer Alistair McGaw, who has a “top-of-the-line” wintering shed and a high producing herd, will contribute to that session, notes Tomsett. “Consultant Lloyd McCall will also be part of that, looking at farm profitability under the different dairy systems, levels two through to five.”
Tomsett says the content of the conference is as much a reflection of the direction of recent research as organisers’ desire to balance interest across the sectors. “There’s been such a focus on environmental performance in the last five or six years and a lot of these papers focus on reducing nitrate leaching, wintering systems and the like. The public’s been demanding answers on these and a lot of the research funding from DairyNZ and others has focused on that as a result.”
And while they’re not labelled as such, several sessions on pasture management and improvements should also be relevant to dairy.
Tomsett says of the anticipated 300-plus attendance, typically a third would be farmers and he’s hoping at least half of them will be dairying.
Tomsett’s neighbour, sheep and beef farmer Nelson Hancox, is chairing the local organising committee and has attended several previous NZGA conferences. “It’s just a really good place for farming, industry and science-based people to catch-up and for the farmers present to have some input into where the research is going in the next five to ten years.”
The conference theme is ‘Opportunities in land use change’. Programme outline and registration forms on www.grassland.org.nz.
Early-bird registration closes Oct 5: $370 for members, $485 for non members, or $200 for student non-members. Association annual membership is $85. Single day earlybird rate: $150.
