The question is whether to dry off or milk on
At this time of year, I regularly get asked a version of the same question: Should I dry off or keep milking my cows? I often see farmers tempted to milk on when the milk price is high.
The key speaker, Massey University Emeritus Professor Colin Holmes, says the current focus on production over profitability in New Zealand is hurting dairy farmers and the industry in general.
"New Zealand has been able to do well in farming because of the country's low-cost pastoral system.... Now we're talking about high-cost, high-supplement, high-input systems; we've lost our competitive advantage."
Holmes says the best way to return to a competitive, profitable system is to change the focus from production to profitability and from kgMS/cow to kgMS/ha. His experience on farms in Wairarapa suggests OAD achieves that, he says.
In the first year farmers tried OAD, production dropped 5% but on-farm costs dropped 26%, increasing profitability in the first year by 15%. But the national average production loss due to switching to OAD is reportedly 18-25%, making farmers reluctant to change.
Holmes compares the current debate over OAD versus twice-a-day to the movement away from stripping and stimulation for cows between 1958 and 1964, when farmers stopped massaging cows udders before cups went on and manually emptying out teats after the cups had finished.
"Even though the research revealed farmers got 18-30% more milk from stripping and stimulating, they stopped," Holmes says.
The genetics of the national herd changed so that the remaining farmers who did strip were gaining only 5% production in the late 1960's compared to 18-30% when the change started. This change is now being seen in OAD farmers equalling or surpassing the production they once got when they milked twice daily. "Farmers are starting to breed OAD cows for the OAD system."
With these developments it is now possible to eliminate costs, keep production high and use workers and equipment more efficiently.
Holmes reckons it should be possible for each person to milk 180 cows by 2030 if OAD is adopted, compared to 140 now.
"If New Zealand farmers continue down the same path of high inputs with confinement feeding we will be using exactly the same system as competitors.... I believe once a day can become the major milking system used on pasture grazing systems."
