LIC sorry, offers compensation for bad sire semen

The farmer-owned co-operative’s bosses will be fronting up to affected farmers on Tuesday evening.

A bad batch of sire semen was used on 1127 herds across the country, resulting in lower pregnancy rates. The premier sire semen straws were provided by LIC for dairy farmers use to mate their herds.

In a statement to NZX on Friday afternoon, the listed co-op says getting cows in calf goes to the core of what it does.

The co-op says it acknowledges the potential impact the bad batch of sire semen has caused for individual cows in farmers’ herds.

“LIC are disappointed that they haven’t delivered to the high standard expected and are taking this situation very seriously,” the statement says.

“The co-op continues to investigate the cause of this issue and have implemented additional quality control checks at 4am each morning prior to semen despatch. Since implementing this, LIC have seen no further issues.

“LIC understands this is the last thing farmers need to deal with and sincerely apologise for the frustration this has caused. The co-op is committed to working with affected farmers, and their LIC agri manager is ready to provide them with support.”

LIC says this month it notified farmers of a semen quality issue that has impacted some batches of their fresh conventional Premier Sires straws that were inseminated on farms on 17 - 19 October and 23 - 25 October.

LIC says it has listened to the feedback from many of its farmers and consulted with the LIC board and shareholder reference group, recognising this situation has impacted farms differently.

LIC is offering a package that has two categories and can be refunded from farmers’ LIC account to their bank account if preferred:

• All affected inseminations across all 6 days will be credited to the value of the original product used.

In addition:

• All CIDR inseminations across all 6 days will be credited a goodwill payment of $30 per insemination.
• All affected inseminations on 18, 19, 24 and 25 October will be credited a goodwill payment of an additional $30 per insemination. This recognises the greater impact identified on these days.
• Any herd where more than or equal to 10% of the herd size were inseminated on 18, 19, 24 and 25 October, a further $30 credit per insemination will be credited.

LIC is inviting farmers to join chief executive David Chin and board chair Corrigan Sowman on Tuesday November 28 at 7pm to hear more about this and have an opportunity to ask questions. This invitation is open to all LIC shareholders.