Climate-friendly cows closer
Dairy farmers are one step closer to breeding cow with lower methane emissions, offering an innovative way to reduce the nation's agricultural carbon footprint without compromising farm productivity.
Herd improvement company CRV Ambreed claims its 2019 bulls offer farmers great options.
Breeding programme manager Aaron Parker says the bulls include daughter-proven and young genomic InSire bulls.
“We’re a future focused company, always planning at least five years ahead,” Parker says.
“We made a long-term commitment to breed sires that would produce healthy and efficient daughters. Our efforts have truly paid off and dairy farmers will ultimately reap the benefits by having better genetics to breed better cows.”
Product manager Peter van Elzakker stresses that sustainable dairy farming cannot be achieved by index alone, and says more farmers are looking for genetic solutions to meet the current and future demands they face in the environment, herd efficiency and animal welfare.
He recommends farmers look more broadly than production figures and choose the right genetics to achieve their overall breeding goals.
“Facial eczema tolerance, for instance, is extremely important for animal welfare, and reducing urinary nitrogren levels via LowN Sires is a great option to use for increasing environmental sustainability,” he said.
Parker points out that this year’s graduate bulls and the 2019 bulls overall have surpassed CRV’s expectations.
“Our selection process is extremely rigorous. Each year we usually choose the best 10 to 12 bulls from a pool of about 120 bulls that have come to the end of the four-year breeding programme and have herd testing and TOP information,” he says.
Parker says breeding for improved health and efficiency works.
“Analysis of herd records shows that a sire with an excellence rating (5% or more) on the Better Life Health index will have progeny with lower somatic cell count and higher conception rates. If they have an excellence rating on the Better Life Efficiency index, they will have progeny producing more milk solids and lasting longer in the herd,” he said.
New Zealand First leader and Foreign Minister Winston Peters is ratcheting up pressure on Fonterra farmers as they vote on divesting the co-operative’s consumer and related businesses.
Alliance Group's Pure South Handpicked 55 Day Aged Beef has been recognised on the world stage, securing top honours at the World Steak Challenge in the Netherlands.
Meat co-operative, Alliance has met with a group of farmer shareholders, who oppose the sale of a controlling stake in the co-op to Irish company Dawn Meats.
Rollovers of quad bikes or ATVs towing calf milk trailers have typically prompted a Safety Alert from Safer Farms, the industry-led organisation dedicated to fostering a safer farming culture across New Zealand.
The Government has announced it has invested $8 million in lower methane dairy genetics research.
A group of Kiwi farmers are urging Alliance farmer-shareholders to vote against a deal that would see the red meat co-operative sell approximately $270 million in shares to Ireland's Dawn Meats.
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