dairy news australia june 2015

ANIMAL WELFARE: Saputo lays down the law PAGE 5

JUNE 2015 ISSUE 59 // www.dairynewsaustralia.com.au

www.landaco.com.au Freecall:1800 358 600

60TVA 75TVA 90TVA 150TVA

*stock available for immediate delivery

Get a Great Deal On Your New Manure Spreader Today

SHARE THE WEALTH

HELPING INDIAAustralia lends expertisePAGE 10

FARMERS’ OWN MILKCritics have it wrongPAGE 15

MG shares may top $3.20PAGE 3

JUNE 2015 ISSUE 59 // www.dairynewsaustralia.com.au

SHARE THE WEALTH

DAI RY NEWS AUSTRALIA JUNE 2015

NEWS // 3

NEWS .......................................................3-11

WORLD ..................................................12-13

OPINION .............................................. 14-15

MARKETS ........................................... 16-17

MANAGEMENT ................................ 18-21

BREEDING MANAGEMENT .....22-23

ANIMAL HEALTH ...........................24-27

CALF REARING ..............................28-30

MACHINERY &

PRODUCTS ....................................... 31-34

SA farmer Andrew Cavill is behind the Men’s Watch mental health program that helps men identify potential problems. PG.08

Western Victorian farmer Mark McCarthy has purchased a Cashels bale cutter and film catcher. PG.31

SA farmer Michael Green has invested in Aussie Red genetics and calls them the great all-rounder for a reason. PG.22

Much Smaller, Shorter and Less Expensive Than You Think!

ALL THE SMALL THINGS ADD UP WITH THE FAIR GO DAIRY FEED PAD

www.wastenot.com.auBetter feeding, higher production.

Call 1800 808 685 for a free information pack, DVD or consultation.

Our customers have found:• Much less mud and pasture damage

• Much less feed wasted• Saves time and labour - Fill every 3 days• Use whole rolls, big squares, silage or fibre

• No tractors or wagons tied up

• Better utilisation of lush pasture

• Better butterfat test – use of fibre

• Increased production

• Improved conception/retention rates

• Gives “battlers” a Fair Go

• Lifts the tail out of the mob

WN074_90x260_SF.indd 1 7/06/11 9:01 PM

Cows wait for milking under the winter sun on the Jones family farm at Kenilworth on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. See page 19 to see how they improved their business.

MURRAY GOULBURN shares could be worth as much as $3.20 each when it lists on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) next month.

The cooperative released an indicative price of $2.10-$3.20 a share in its prospectus.

The final price will be confirmed on July 3.

The partial float will be pitched to investors on an earnings multiple of 17.7 times earnings, with an implied yield of 7.4%.

Outside investors will hold no voting rights in the cooperative to protect its 100% farmer ownership.

Investors in the Murray Goulburn Unit Trust will be eligible to receive annual and half yearly distributions, which will be equivalent to dividends paid to the cooperative’s shareholders.

An overwhelming majority of 92% of supplier-shareholders approved the co-ops proposed changes to its capital structure

at an extraordinary meeting last month.

MG hopes to raise $500 million, which it will invest in new processing facilities.

MG managing director, Gary Helou, is confident the cooperative will raise the $500 million by July, saying the offer had attracted interest from not only local investors but ones from Asia and Europe who were keen for exposure to Australian dairy assets.

About 1400 farmers of MG’s 2500 supply base were eligible to take part in a supplier share offer.

MG said more than 50% of the available shares were taken up during the supplier offer. Shares were purchased on a sliding scale from $1.24 to $1 and MG said the average price of shares was $1.15.

Suppliers who buy shares will have to supply MG for between one and three years, depending on the amount purchased.

An MG shareholder cannot hold more than 0.5% of MG’s share capital.

MG announced on May 1 a full year forecast for 2015/16 of $6.05kg/MS, saying this forecast “assumes the capital structure is implemented following a vote of shareholders…..and is based on the assumptions and risk factors set out in the prospectus including an average valuation of the dollar of US76c for the duration of the 2015/16 financial year”.

“Under the capital structure, supplier/shareholders are also expected to receive a higher dividend than that paid historically. Subject to available franking credits the dividend is also expected to be fully franked,” the co-op said in a supplier letter.

Following the meeting, MG managing d irector, Gary Helou, said investment in the business would improve farmgate returns.

“The approval of the capital structure gives us the opportunity to raise $500 million in new capital which we will invest to further our strategic shift towards premium value-add dairy foods and in the process reduce MG’s exposure to the volatility of the dairy commodity price cycle,” he said.

“Global demand for dairy foods continues to grow, particularly in Asia. All global dairy companies are racing to capture a share of these growth opportunities and in this context, MG does not have a moment to waste.

“We will invest the new capital we ultimately raise, in world’s leading manufacturing capability and market reach, to ensure we are well placed to meet and serve the growing needs of dairy customers and consumers in Australia and internationally for premium, quality, Australian made dairy foods.”

MG shares could reach $3.20

THE CHINESE bought a one year supply of milk powder from world mar-kets then suddenly stopped buying, Alltech’s chief innovation officer, Aidan Connolly, said.

That’s having a dramatic effect on prices in China, New Zealand and around the world, he told the opening day of Alltech’s REBELation Sympo-sium in Kentucky, attended by 3000 international delegates.

“Wh ether the Chinese government is choosing to manipulate the markets or whether [it] is buying strategically, the reality is the consumption of milk by China is tremendously affecting the price of milk around the world,” he said.

“The Chinese effectively purchased a year’s supply of milk powder from the world markets and suddenly in one fell swoop chose not to buy anymore.”

Connolly was illustrating how much Chinese buying was now influencing milk prices. He said until then dairy production had had a positive outlook and milk prices had been at a very high level, also extremely affected by what

was going on in China.The reform of the European

common agriculture policy also has tremendous implications for milk prices, not just in Europe but the rest of the world, he said.

“We are no longer living in a world where an Irish person can produce milk in Ireland and not worry about the milk price somewhere. We are no longer living in a world where it is pos-sible to consider what is happening in some part of the United States and not be concerned about what the Chinese purchasers are doing.

“Increasingly we see that these markets and that interconnection is making it extremely important to understand the world market.”

Connolly, who is also Alltech’s vice-president corporate accounts, said there were big differences in cost of production: Uruguay, Argentina, New Zealand and Australia have a tremen-dous cost advantage. It will be inter-esting to see if the European Union reforms will bring down the cost of pro-duction in Europe and enable access to other countries. Due to imported feed costs, etc the cost of production in China is also still substantially higher

than in Argentina, New Zealand and even the United States.

The milk output from China is increasing and will continue to increase but they are limited by land.

Looking at the largest producers, he

noted that Fonterra is now not just a New Zealand company; it is also pres-ent in China and other parts of the world as were all the other companies in the top 20.

He said the future for milk will

see a steady 1.8% per annum growth globally.

“The demand will increase faster than consumption and production levels, which should lead to us seeing a higher price.”


4 // NEWS

FONTERRA IS expecting milk production worldwide to slow as the low price makes it unsustainable to milk cows.

Fonterra chairman John Wilson says New Zealand milk production has on average jumped 4.6% every year for five years.

However, he expects

the growth to taper off.Mr Wilson said

with the average global dairy price hovering at US$2200-2400/tonne it is uneconomic to get milk from farms to global markets.

“We believe at the low price [milking] is unsustainable and farmers will respond by cutting production,” Mr

Wilson said.According to Fonterra’s

latest global dairy update, EU production in February decreased 1% compared to the same month last year. February was the first month since June 2013 to see a fall in milk production.

This decrease was widespread in all the major EU dairy producing

countries including Germany, France, Netherlands, UK and Poland.

Fonterra’s milk collection in Chile is currently down due to seasonality of production and drought in the south.

Milk production in Russia is also down as poor profitability has caused a contraction in the

dairy herd, in particular on small farms.

The drop in milk production will eventually squeeze supply and help prices rise.

But Mr Wilson cannot say for sure when prices will start to turn around.

“We said in December that prices would turn around now but this hasn’t happened; now we think it

will take another six to 12 months.”

Demand for dairy is holding reasonably well despite an influx of milk over the last 12 months.

Mr Wilson said there is no real build-up of stocks around the world. “Our customers are holding well, there’s a lot of demand for milk.”

The first Global Dairy

Trade auction of the month saw the average dairy price index drop 2.2% to US$2412/tonne, its sixth consecutive drop.

Whole milk powder dropped 3.1% to US$2309/t while skim milk powder fell 1.3% to US$1982/t. Butter saw the biggest drop - down 10% to US$2619/t.

Hopes low prices will see fall in global milk supply

Delegates at Alltech’s REBELation symposium in Kentucky.

China stops buying, prices crumblePAM TIPA

• A Packo milk tank and system to suit all herd sizes, pick up schedules, and entry temperatures

• Simple one button operation to activate either cooling or wash modes

• Packo’s Patented fully automatic Rotojet cleaning system, ensures every square inch of the inside vessel is clean and hygienic.

• The choice is yours- Direct expansion or a glycol chilling tank

• Pre, instant cooling systems available

New & Secondhand systems / Wash system upgrades for any make-model tank

Dairy-Tech Refrigeration

Call Dairy-Tech Refrigeration today for a no hassle quotation

Phone 03 56623277 email [email protected] Web www.dairytechrefrig.com.au

The dedicated milk cooling specialistRegistered Packo Dealer Australia


NEWS // 5

Saputo enforces animal welfare program on all suppliersCANADIAN DAIRY giant Saputo, which owns Warrnambool Cheese and Butter (WCBF), has responded to a widely publicized video of animal abuse at one of its Canadian milk suppli-ers by announcing a new policy on live-stock welfare.

The policy could have implications for Australian farmers that supply WCBF.

Saputo’s plan unveiled earlier this month includes a commitment to end tail docking, and to ensure the use of pain control when disbudding calves.

The dairy company will also spend $1 million to sponsor animal-care educa-tion at two leading agricultural univer-sities, University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, and University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the US.

Footage was taken by animal rights group, Mercy for Animals, on the farm of one of Saputo’s largest milk suppliers, Chilliwack Cattle Sales, and broadcast in the Canadian media in June, 2014.

Farm workers are shown beating and kicking cattle.

Saputo president, Lino Saputo Jnr, told Canadian newspaper, The Globe and Mail: “To be honest, I was shaken. And it was something that I never want to see again. We recognised last year after the incident that there, quite frankly, was not enough leadership in the industry to carry this issue forward.

“So we have made a much more robust policy that our suppliers have to adhere to.”

Saputo has operations in Canada, the United States, Argentina and now

Australia. In a press release, it said it will

require farms that are direct suppliers to follow the new policies.

The company said its animal wel-fare policy is based on core principles and scientific evidence.

“It was developed through exten-sive consultations with customers, dairy producers, veterinarians, govern-mental authorities, universities and other industry stakeholders across the Saputo value chain,” the company said in a statement.

“The policy was created by Saputo’s key leaders and its newly appointed director of animal welfare, Dr Warren Skippon, formerly of the Canadian Vet-erinary Medical Association.”

Key elements of the policy include:

■ Zero tolerance for any act of animal cruelty.

■ A commitment to achieving the elimination of tail docking in dairy cattle.

■ The dedication of resources to ensuring a minimum industry stan-dard for pain control when dehorn-ing or disbudding cattle. “The Policy states Saputo’s commit-

ment to supporting initiatives and pro-grams that promote communication, awareness and training opportunities for dairy production welfare issues.

“The company will provide addi-tional resources to two leading North American university programs that specialise in dairy animal handling and welfare.”

As such, the new Saputo Dairy Care

Program will be offered at the Univer-sity of Guelph through the Campbell Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare and the Ontario Veterinary College.

The Saputo Dairy Care program will focus on providing practical dairy welfare education, including workshops, to veterinary students, veterinary practitioners, and dairy producers.

At the University of Wisconsin-Mad-ison School of Veterinary Medicine, Saputo will sponsor the Dairyland Ini-tiative, which provides resources, con-sulting services and workshops to develop animal welfare-friendly hous-ing for dairy cattle, and making each of these tools accessible to dairy producers and participating professionals across the world.

Lion expansion to underpin Asian growthDAIRY PROCESSOR Lion has opened what it calls the Southern Hemi-sphere’s largest speciality cheese facility.

Lion officially opened its $150m processing expansion at its Burnie processing site, The Her-itage, Tasmania, last month.

The Heritage has been significantly expanded and upgraded, with over $150m in direct invest-ment from Lion.

The automated facil-ity comprises robots that pack the cheese for domestic and interna-tional markets. The fac-tory will employ between 250 and 280 people.

It received support from the Tasmanian gov-ernment and other local stakeholders.

Lion had previously set up a separate business unit, Lion Asia Dairy. The new site will enable them to produce the volume to meet that demand.

They currently send about 5% of their cheese to Asia but hope to grow this.

The $150 million upgrade had taken about five years to implement and was part of a process where Lion consolidated its cheese facilities around the country.

Lion closed eight fac-

tories across mainland Australia when it shifted its focus on upgrading the cheese factory in Burnie.

The factory produces about 11,000 tonnes of premium cheeses every year, which makes up almost 30% of total spe-cialty cheese sales in the Australian grocery sector.

About 62 farmers supply the 80 million litres of milk processed at the plant into high-end cheeses, including the South Cape and Tasma-nian Heritage brands.

Lion CEO, Stuart Irvine, said the site has been transformed into one of the world’s most tech-nologically advanced spe-cialty cheese facilities.

“Specialty cheese will be a key value driver for our business, as a growing category that is strategi-cally important to our cus-tomers.”

Lion’s cheese brands include South Cape, Tas-manian Heritage, Mersey Valley and King Island.

“We have significant headroom to increase spe-cialty cheese consump-tion and maximise the impact of our portfolio, and our strategy is focused on unlocking this opportu-nity,” he said.

“Lion’s investment in The Heritage is integral to

this, as we work to opti-mise the performance of our supply chain and achieve competitive effi-ciency and scale.

“The expanded site will also help us grow capac-ity and capability to inno-vate in specialty cheese, ultimately driving higher margin sales that deliver sustainable returns to Lion and through the whole supply chain.”

Lion’s Ben Sandow with DairyTas executive officer Mark Smith and DairyTas chair Cheryl McCartie, from Ringarooma.


6 // NEWS

China seeks other markets for breedersCHINA’S DAIRY industry is looking to source breeding stock from more countries, including those in Latin America, as a result of the strong prices paid for Australian dairy cattle.

Michael Napier, Rabobank Echuca manager, Mr Napier said it’s becoming clear that China may not want to con-tinue to pay the prices they have been paying for imported dairy cattle.

Rabobank, in conjunction with Alta Genetics and the Rochester Dairy Business Network (DBN), helped coordinate a week-long reconnais-sance trip to China, allowing Austra-lian dairy farmers to follow the supply chain.

“The Chinese dairy farmers want to diversify their sources of origin – they’re looking for other markets like Latin America for example,” he said.

“In addition to this, Chinese dairy operations are going to great lengths to rear their own heifers.

“We heard of one operation milking 20,000 cows using sexed semen which will result in a large number of heifers either being used to increase their milk-ing operation or sold to other Chinese buyers.

“This is an important consideration for Australian dairy farmers who some-what depend on the strength of this live export market.”

Despite the ambitions of the Chinese dairy sector, Mr Napier said productiv-ity growth takes time.

“With a challenging logistical land-scape – geographically, climatically and environmentally – China is unlikely to

realise its self-sufficiency production ambitions overnight,” he said.

“Most milk is produced in north-ern China near Harbin City, in a cooler region which poses many challenges when transporting fresh milk to key population areas such as Shanghai and Beijing.

“There is still a place for imported Australian milk yet.”

Mr Napier said the group was cer-tainly impressed with the quality of the

dairy businesses they visited, real-ising that the Chi-nese market may not present the “golden road to prosperity”, as it

is often optimistically deemed back in Australia.

“We saw [UHT] long-life milk selling for approximately A$3.50-4 per litre and Chinese branded fresh milk was selling $A8.80 per litre,” he said.

“You can see why the Chinese dairy farmers are ramping up production.

“There is plenty of incentive for the local farmers to work hard to make their own milk and reap the returns.

“It became clear that the Chinese are taking milk production very seri-ously and producing more milk to meet their needs – and they are doing a good job of it. This could mean that gains in China may not come that easily, given the increased focus of the Chinese on their dairy herd breeding and domestic milk production.

“For Australia, it’s not just a matter of sending milk and knowing it will sell. We need plenty of thought into how we sell and market our products there.”

Made in Australia logo won’t stand outPUTTING A ‘made in Australia’ logo on Australian dairy products bound for China won’t be enough to capitalise on this emerging market, according to dairy specialist, Michael Harvey.

Mr Harvey, a senior dairy analyst with Rabobank, took part in a trip to China in April with 14 northern Victorian dairy farmers, coordinated by Rabobank, Alta Genetics and the Rochester Dairy Business network.

The week-long reconnaissance trip allowed Australian dairy farm-ers to follow the supply chain from Australia to China, witnessing for themselves the local nuances and developments occurring within the Chinese dairy sector.

“We need to get ahead of the trend on a branding fron t and a supply front – it’s mind-blowing to see how many other appealing inter-national labels there are competing for market share on Chinese super-market shelves,” Mr Harvey said.

“Marketing our production integ-rity and transparency is certainly an advantage for Australia’s dairy sector in terms of reputation but we cannot fall back in other categories such as branding and production.”

Mr Harvey said one of Australia’s key challenges will ultimately be to produce enough milk to service the Chinese customers.

“We saw their retail shelves and they are stocked with so many inter-national brands – whether you’re looking at the infant formula aisle or the liquid milk aisle – there are brands from all over the world all competing for a piece of the China dairy pie,” he said.

“If Australia doesn’t grow its pro-duction, then it won’t grow with its customers.

“We’ll be left behind because other countries’ brands will build market share because they’ve got more product and volume to reli-ably supply to that market.”

Mr Harvey described the tour

as both “eye-opening” and “invalu-able”.

“You can’t replace first-hand knowledge and time spent on the ground getting to know your market, the production systems, and the retail and consumer end,” Mr Harvey said.

“Being able to see each link in the supply chain in the world’s largest dairy import market – and Austra-lia’s most important export market – provided incredible knowledge and understanding to bring home to Aus-tralia.”

The tour included visits to Alta-Agricorp China, Nestle’s China operation, the Dairy Association of China, the Alta bull stud which houses mostly Australian-bred Hol-stein sires, Huaxia Dairy Company, Heilongjiang Wondersun Dairy Co. Ltd, Sinofarm and the Indonesian-owned Austasia Dairy Company.

The expedition culminated at the World Dairy Exposition in Harbin City.

“You can see why the Chinese dairy farmers are ramping up production.”

A group of 14 northern Victorian dairy farmers travelled to China to see the opportunities fi rsthand.

iDAIRY®

For more solutions to make farming ezy... FREE Ph: 1800 124 034 Go online: www.technipharm.com.au

*Conditions apply. All prices exclude GST, Insurance & freight.

ONLINE SPECIALwww.technipharm.com.au

MILK CHECKER™

High SCC? Possible penalties and treatment cost? Test for infections with instant results.Instant indication of infection level, instant results on treated and retested milk before it goes back into the vat. Ezy Quik and instant results

CASTRATORSCastrating with knives? This can be dangerous, staff safety compromised & animal performance set back, resulting in a potential loss of revenue.Use a TechniPharm™ castrator at the critical time.More beef on the hook and staff kept safe.

TOP TECH™ HIGH LIFT GATECows hard to get into the dairy parlour for milking? The Top Tech™ high lift gate is sensitive and does not bulldoze the cows.A reliable management system resulting in less stress for cows and staff.

ECOBAG™ Storage of effluent is taking a whole new turn with an ECOBAG™ Cost effective with limited engineering needed.Almost no smell and no crusting ever PLUS the added benefit of less evaporation of valuable N!

SPEED SENSITIVE TEATSPRAYER™ Cow teat condition abismal? Cost of treatment and labour for manual spraying high?Invest in an automatic teatspray system. All your cows teatsprayed correctly every milking and a reduction in labour and cost.

GROOMER™ NZ’s most popular Hooftrimmer. Lame cows and treatment a real hassle? Cow care and staff safety compromised?Get a professionally designed hoofcare handler. Cows lame feet treated early and staff kept safe.

“we make farming ezy”PACIFIER™

NEW...NEW...Scan the Code using

your smartphone - then grab a TechniPharm

Ezy Deal

Fresh cows on the platform?

A neuro immobiliser relaxes the cow and a relaxed

cow will get used to milking more easily.

Reduced labour, less staff frustration and better overall

animal wellbeing.

NEWWalk through headlock

NEW...NEW...Scan the Code using

Normally$1795

NormallyNormallyNormallyNormallyNormallyNormally$1595

ANIMAL CONTROL UNIT

Special$1195 N0RMALLY $1495

TH1848M 29-05-15

*Conditions apply.

PACIFIER

Fresh cows on the platform? A neuro immobiliser relaxes

the cow and a relaxed cow will get used to milking more easily.

Reduced labour, less staff frustration and better overall

animal wellbeing.

$1595$1595$1595

ANIMAL CONTROL UNIT

cond

ition

s m

ay a

pply

, all

offe

rs p

lus

GST

and

frei

ght,

all I

P ri

ghts

rese

rved


NEWS // 7

WA farmers should look southTHE SOUTH Coast of Western Aus-tralia has been identified as a potential hot spot for dairy industry growth.

A new feasibility study has high-lighted the region’s strengths, includ-ing lower land costs and higher returns on capital.

The study says several factors make it “logical” for West Coast dairy farmers wishing to expand to seriously consider relocating to the South Coast.

It also says beef farmers on the South Coast should consider changing alle-giance to dairying for the higher profit and return on capital.

The report says the capital require-ments to establish a dairy farm on the South Coast are a third less than those on the West Coast.

The feasibility study by Alan Peggs Agricultural and Pastoral Consultants was unveiled at a recent Dairy Innova-

tion Day hosted by Western Dairy and Dairy Australia.

The study has been welcomed by Western Dairy executive officer Esther Price who said Western Dairy concurred with its findings.

“At innovation day we showcased examples of farmers who have invested in this area,” Ms Price said.

“That’s proof of what’s in the feasi-bility study.

“Western Dairy sees the South Coast as an area of opportunity and potential future expansion,” she added.

The study presents a rosy picture for the future of dairying in the region.

It found South Coast milk produc-tion generates a higher return on cap-ital than beef production and higher returns than dairy production on the West Coast.

Land values are about half those of the West Coast.

The report predicts growth through existing producers expanding, dairy

farmers relocating from the south-west, and local beef farmers convert-ing to dairy.

It said a combination of foreign acquisition of local milk processing assets and a decline in milk production had led to milk prices being offered to dairy farmers which significantly improve the profitability of milk pro-duction.

“There is potential to expand milk production on the South Coast at these prices,” it says.

The report highlights the potential for a variety of farming scenarios to work in the region, including the use of robot dairies.

Mr Peggs said the most interest-ing revelation from the study was the potential to significantly improve the income of small beef producers by con-verting their land to dairy farms with the cows milked by robotic automatic milk-ing machines.

The report recommends the eco-

nomic potential of the South Coast as a region for expanded milk production be ‘marketed’.

“Too few people are aware of the region’s potential and that its return on capital from dairy farming is signif-icantly higher than the West Coast’s. The substantially higher profitability of milk production compared to beef, even at current high beef prices, needs to be made known.”

It also calls for an investigation into the feasibility of converting beef farms to dairy farms using ‘lower order share-farmers’.

Western Australia will need an extra five million litres of milk annually for the white milk domestic market, two million litres more for the flavoured milk market and 10 million litres more for extended shelf-life export markets.

An extra 2500 cows will be needed to meet the demand.

The report said potential constraints to expanding the industry included high

milk transport costs, power supply and a lack of understanding about the advantages of the region.

However, the mild climate; lower land prices; labour and land availabil-ity; proximity to sources of feed; and access to underground water are attrac-tive attributes for the region.

“The dairy industry on the South Coast has the potential to become a ‘leading growth’ sector for the Great Southern region; given this there is jus-tification for government agencies to actively plan for greater capacity in key infrastructure such as electricity and water,” the report states.

The region is home to 13 dairy busi-nesses – down on about 30 in 2000 - and currently produces about 30 mil-lion litres of milk a year, about 10% of the state’s total.

The principal market for milk from the region is the drinking milk market in the metropolitan area.

RICK BAYNE

WESTERN AUSTRALIA is looking for new milk markets after a welcome surge in production over the past year that farmers hope can be sustained.

While some excess fresh milk has been trucked across the Nullarbor to South Aus-tralia in what is believed to be an Austra-lian first, the industry is more interested in hooking into export trade.

The extended shelf life market in South East Asia is seen as a likely target to ensure Western Australia has scope to put its growing pr oduction to profitable use.

The state’s milk production is up 4.9% over the past year, and was even higher over summer.

Lion has confirmed it sent some small quantities of excess milk to South Australia but didn’t expect that to continue.

A spokesman said the excellent sea-sonal conditions had led to higher than expected production.

“They’ve had a good summer and rather than waste it, some milk was sent to South Australia. It’s only temporary and we don’t expect it to last long.”

WA Farmers president and member of the industry growth committee, Phil Depi-azzi, said good weather conditions and pro-cessor incentives were the main drivers of growth.

“We’ve had a pretty good summer,” he said. “We had a few hot days but not pro-longed heat, which was good for the cows, and then we had a sensational autumn break.”

Mr Depiazzi said his cows were out on grass two or three weeks ahead of normal. “That’s certainly increased production right through to May,” he added.

Farmers have also welcomed Harvey Fresh’s growth incentive and good con-

tracts offered to Lion suppliers.“Farmers have responded well and

they’re gearing up for a good year ahead,” he said.

Mr Depiazzi said the industry hoped the growth was a sign of positive things to come.

“Production should stay pretty high,” he said. “Because of this good early start, most farms are going to get a good feed wedge and should have good pasture through winter and into spring, depend-

ing on what the climate does.”Mr Depiazzi said the indus-

try growth committee was working with processors, farm-ers and everyone in the supply chain to grow milk across the state.

“At the end of the day the processors will be the ones to drive that growth through their pricing. We want to work

together so we get sustainable growth that processors and farmers can cope with.”

Mr Depiazzi said sustainable export markets were needed to house any excess milk. “We don’t want to see ourselves as just a domestic supply. We want a sustain-able price at 50-55 cents, but we need to work together to ensure that milk produc-tion matches the sale side of things.”

Mr Depiazzi said Western Australia was capable of good year-round supply but couldn’t pretend to match the east coast as a commodity exporter.

“However, extended shelf life products in the Asian market is an option that needs to be explored,” he added.

“We need to talk to government to make sure they encourage processors to invest in the state.”

Mr Depiazzi said W.A. could be inspired by growth in Tasmania. “You see what has happened in other states such as Tasmania which continues to grow because farmers see new stainless steel and a requirement for milk and it gives them confidence.”

WA hopeful milk growth can continueRICK BAYNE

WA BRIEFLY turned the tables on neighbouring South Australia and for the first time in memory has seen some milk transported to the east.

This has taken some by sur-prise, but S.A. dairy farmer James Stacey said there were no major worries about local farmers filling local needs.

“South Australia has enough fresh milk to supply the state,” Mr Stacey said. “We probably have a surplus of milk for three or four months of the year through spring.”

However, some South Austra-lian dairy regions have struggled this year.

“Last spring was ordinary and South Australia has been down on production but Western Australia has had a good autumn and they have incen-tives in place to encour-age more summer and autumn production,” Mr Stacey said.

Mr Stacey said some Victorian milk had been coming to South Australia for up to eight months of the year, but there should be no need to truck milk into the state.

“It would be wise for processors buying milk in South Australia to

try to match the demand with the supply and use price to

achieve that,” he said. “It seems ridiculous to me to be shipping milk from Victoria in the autumn

because there isn’t enough milk. There is enough milk

to supply Adelaide from the central region

if the supply pattern was flattened out a bit more.”

Mr Stacey said his farm’s pro-duction was up. “Our season is going well but our concern obvi-ously is milk price going forward and the talk of El Nino makes you conscious of the back end.”

Milk crosses border

Phil Depiazzi

“Last spring was ordinary and South Australia has been down on production

and they have incen-

try to match the demand with the supply and use price to

achieve that,” he said. “It seems ridiculous to me to be shipping milk from Victoria in the autumn

because there isn’t enough milk. There is enough milk

James Stacey

Bale-Up Hayfeeders [email protected]: 0458 590 766 • Fax 03 5859 1137

New from Bale Up HayfeedersOur modular feed pad model, the next level in feed pads, comes in 4 metre units. Buy 2 ‘bookend’ units and add as many open ended centre units as you need. No more feed on the ground and extremely low waste, and like all our feeders comes with our rolled corrugated floor.

Calf feeder $1980 inc gst

New from Bale Up HayfeedersOur modular feed pad model, the next level in feed

extremely low waste, and like all our feeders comes extremely low waste, and like all our feeders comes Standard cow feeder

$2200 inc gst

Bale-Up Hayfeeders

with our rolled corrugated floor.

$2600 incl GST per unit

Dai ry NewS aUSTraLia june 2015

8 // news

sOUTH-eAsT sOUTH Australian dairy farmer Andrew Cavill has just finished his first stint as a sheep farmer, all in the name of good mental health.

Last year Mr Cavill was behind the launch of a Men’s Watch program introduced in the Limestone Coast region to tackle its alarming rate of rural men’s suicide that has claimed several lives in recent years. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show rural men are the most common victims of suicide.

A new program is due in October and Mr Cavill also hopes to start a Women’s Watch later in the year.

At the same time he’s doing his bit personally to make sure fellow farmers are doing okay…even if that means temporarily trading allegiance from dairy cows to sheep.

Mr Cavill, who milks 600 cows on 400ha, has swapped farming duties with a neighbour for a few days.

In the wake of ongoing dry conditions in Mr Cavill’s Bool Lagoon region near Naracoorte, sheep farmers have been forced to feed their flocks for up to seven hours each day over the past eight months.

Apart from the cost, the time commitment is taking its toll.

“I’ve been watching them feed their sheep for weeks on end and felt to myself I bet these fellas are over it,” Mr Cavill said.

“I stopped a farmer on the road the other day and asked how he was going feeding the sheep. He said he just couldn’t do it for one more day he was that sick of it.

“After talking for a while he realised it was becoming a mental health issue. There are a lot like it. It wears them down. Those are the issues that get men depressed.”

Adopting the old maxim that a

change is as good as a holiday, Mr Cavill and his fellow farmer came up with a plan. “We feed dairy cows every day so I said I’ll swap you. You show me how to do yours and I’ll show you how to do mine and we can both have a break for a few days each month till we don’t need to anymore.”

That “do something different” strategy is one of many Mr Cavill has used over the years to keep good mental health.

He will be sharing some of his strategies and outlining the Men’s Watch program at the Grassland Society of Southern Australia’s annual conference in Naracoorte, SA, on

July 22-23. He will also talk about his successful pasture management system.

Mr Cavill said the first round of Men’s Watch programs had been a resounding success. Four programs ran last year at Mt Gambier, Penola, Naracoorte and Millicent and attracted 121 men.

The programs are funded by local communities and designed to get men talking and being better able to identify signs of problems.

“Ultimately we want to measure it with a dropping rate in suicides but to get 121 men to have a better understanding of what goes on and why

they feel like they do we consider to be very successful,” Mr Cavill said.

“It’s to help men to build strategies to overcome daily problems and longer term to give them confidence to see a doctor and get a resolution. If you don’t do anything about it, it’s just like an untreated cancer; it just spreads.

“You find big tough farmers who come and won’t talk about anything but by the second night they’re opening up and talking about things they admit they wouldn’t normally talk to anyone about.

“Hopefully some of the men are also better equipped to identify others in trouble and be able to communicate

with them.”Mr Cavill, 53, had problems nearly

20 years ago. “I’ve always been a very positive person but I had a terrible upbringing that never affected me until I was about 35. Farming wise I’ve always been okay but if you spend a lot of years not dealing with stuff it affects your faming, your life and your family.

“I came to a point where I had to deal with it. In those days there wasn’t much help around so I had to deal with it myself and worked out a few things to get me through.”

For more information on the conference visit www.grasslands.org.au or call 1300 137 550.

RICK BAYne

Trading dairy for sheep, all for mental health

Mental health advocate and SA farmer Andrew Cavill has swapped farming duties with a neighbour who has become worn down with constantly feeding his fl ock for the past eight months.

DAIRY NEWS ON THE GO

Available every month just look for the arrow!

DAIRY NEWS ON THE GO

Available every month just look for the arrow!

www.dairynewsaustralia.com.auCHECK OUT THE LATEST NEWS AND INFORMATION AT


news // 9

Port of Melbourne sale will hurt VICTORIAn FARMeRs Federation president, Peter Tuohey, says the Victo-rian Government has failed to earmark one cent of the $5 billion it expects to generate from the Port of Melbourne privatisation to rural Victoria.

Mr Tuohey said the Port of Mel-bourne was built on the back of food and fibre exports yet all the revenue will be directed to removing 50 train level crossings in Melbourne.

Last year, dairy exporters sent 44,600 shipping containers through the port, making the industry the fifth largest user of the port. “How is that fair?” Mr Tuohey asked.

The VFF is also concerned that port rents are set to skyrocket under Labor, which will lead to higher con-tainer costs on milk powder, grain, wool, meat and an array of horticul-tural produce.

“The Government will be handing monopoly power over our food and fibre export gateway to one company,” Mr Tuohey said.

“Yet the Essential Services Com-mission will have no oversight of the rents the new leaseholder charges ste-vedores like Patricks and DP World.

“We’ve already seen the Port of Mel-bourne Corporation proposing mas-sive rent hikes of 800%, even before

privatisation.“It’s clearly a case of fattening the

pig before sale. And it’s farmers and other rural Victorians that rely on them who’ll end wearing the cost of these higher rents.

“Ultimately higher rentals paid by stevedores will be passed back down the supply chain to farmers.” Early estimates are the rent hike will add $80 to the cost of every 20-foot

container moving through the port. That will cost the average Victorian dairy farmer $1200 a year.

“That’s why we’re calling on the Government to treat rural people equally. Give country Victoria a fair share of the port privatisation revenue and give the ESC the power it needs to fully regulate this monopoly, so that we don’t end up crippling the competitive-ness of our port and farmers.”

SA Govt buys Vic irrigation waterTHe VICTORIAn Farmers Federation has accused the South Australian Government of raiding Victorian irriga-tors’ water markets, while letting its $1.8 billion desalina-tion plant run on idle.

VFF Water Council chairman, Richard Anderson, said SA Water, owned by the SA Government, has entered the water market instead of further utilising its desalination plant.

“South Australia’s desalination plant is operating at 10% capacity and for just nine months of the year,” Mr Ander-son said.

“Instead of cranking up their desalination plant, SA Water has instead decided to wade into Victoria’s water markets and drain 8 billion litres out of our irrigation communities.”

The SA desalination plant has the capacity to produce 100,000 megalitres a year but SA Water’s website shows it’s producing less than 1000 megalitres a month.

Mr Anderson claimed SA was running the whole process of irrigator water buyouts in an underhand way.

“Irrigation communities deserve better and the SA Gov-ernment, which owns SA Water, needs to tell us exactly what they’re doing.

“So far all they’ve done is issue a two-line statement (on April 30) stating they would: ‘acquire up to 8000 megalitres of additional entitlements to ensure reliable source water availability’.

“We need to know how long they will be in the water market and why do they need the water? Why are they get-ting brokers to make unsolicited calls to irrigators and is there a tender process?

“And what irrigation systems are they buying from?” “We’ll be calling on SA Water and the SA Government to

explain their actions. “I’ll also be asking Victorian Water Minister Lisa Neville

to back our call and write to the SA Government demanding to know why they’re in the Victorian market.”

Mr Anderson said Victorian irrigators expected SA to follow the same rules as the Commonwealth when it came to buying water with taxpayers’ money.

“The Commonwealth has a clear process in place when it comes to buying water, which provides a range of infor-mation to prospective sellers including average prices paid in recent tenders and general market price information.”

Mr Anderson said the SA Government was being lazy and drawing on taxpayers’ contributions to raid and distort the Victorian water market.

“They’re offering Victorian irrigators $2500 a megalitre, about $1000 above the current market price,” he said.

As it stands SA Water is selling 12,000 megalitres of tem-porary (only available for one season) water to help fund its purchase of 8000 megalitres of permanent Victorian water.

Mr Anderson said there was a big difference between a one-off sale of temporary water that was only available for one season, compared to permanently draining 8000 megalitres of entitlement out of northern Victorian irriga-tion communities.

“Eight thousand megalitres of water can produce 10 mil-lion litres of milk.”

“Lose the water and you lose the food, jobs and export revenue it delivers to Victoria.”

DeLaval’s preventive maintenance programme decreases breakdowns by up to 70%

Trouble-free milking, it’s the Plus+ you’ve been looking for.DeLaval’s InService™ preventive maintenance programme is your best guarantee of trouble-free milking. With the most highly-trained service technicians in the industry and utilising state-of-the-art testing equipment, an InService™ programme can reduce breakdown costs by up to 70% in existing installations. It’s more than an annual machine check, it’s the world’s leading dairy systems provider looking at your system as a whole and then providing preventive maintenance, advice and consumables so that you can maintain premium milk quality.

Talk to your local DeLaval dealer about putting the Plus+ in your farm. Call 1800 817 199 or visit delaval.com.au

by up to 70%

TRAC

TA54

442-DNA


10 // NEWS

A VACANCY will be open on the Dairy Australia board for a farmer director at this year’s annual general meeting.

There are two board vacancies this year, with Gippsland farmer Kelvin Jackson having completed a maximum of nine years on the board.

John McKillop has served one three-year term and will stand for re-election.

The requirements of the constitution mean that one of the new directors must have a milk producer background. The other director being sought should have proven exper-tise in agribusiness and strategy.

The constitution outlines two paths to election as director, the first is to be nominated by the board selec-tion committee and the second is to be nominated by at least 100 Group A members.

Applications for the milk producer vacancy should be sent (mail or email) to the Dairy Australia Board Pre-Selec-tion Committee C/- Florence Roney, Level 2, 22 William St , Melbourne 3000 or [email protected].

Applicants for the agribusiness and strategy vacancy are requested to apply via Mick Hay at www.rimfirere-sources.com.au.

The deadline is COB Thursday, June 18.

DA seeks farmer director

AUSTRALIAN DAIRY expertise and services are set to play a key role in developing a modern, high quality milk production sector in India.

The northern Victorian consultancy Profitable Dairy Systems has completed a feasibility study for a 250 head pilot farm on a greenfield site just south of New Delhi.

The new dairy is expected to be a forerunner to multiple 2500 cow units built by a major processor keen to source high quality milk for middle and upper class Indian consumers.

Project leader Philip Chamberlain, a Queensland veterinary dairy special-ist, is working closely with Austrade in the emerging market which he said held enormous potential for Australian busi-nesses.

“There is great commercial opportu-nity for a range of Australian expertise from the provision of tropically-adapted genetics to nutrition, animal husbandry and farm management. Training and other ancillary services will also be required – they need a complete pack-age,” Dr Chamberlain said.

“Until now India has not known a lot about the dairy expertise Australia has to offer.”

A diverse group of 12 potential Aus-tralian suppliers has come together following the success of a mission led by Trade Minister Andrew Robb and Parliamentary Secretary for Agricul-ture, Senator Richard Colbek, which attended Australian Business Week in India in January.

“It makes sense to pool Australian resources as one person or company couldn’t do it alone,” Dr Chamberlain said.

Anirban Deb is an experienced Aus-trade business development manager in India who has a key focus on opportuni-ties in the growing dairy sector.

“India is actually the largest fresh milk producing country in the world with production of 130 million tonnes per annum. The national milking herd comprises about 122 million cows and 90 million buffalos.”

Speaking during a visit to Australia in May, Mr Deb said the Indian industry was struggling to keep pace with a 7% annual growth in milk demand.

“The animal-to-land ratio had reached saturation point which has caused the focus to shift from low input-low output to high input-high output production systems to increase milk yield,” Mr Deb said.

“This change in market dynamics is encouraging the development of large new intensive dairies which will lift effi-ciency and productivity.”

There was significant interest in large scale projects by corporations, entrepreneurs and progressive farmer associations.

Mr Deb said a new national 15-year dairy plan still has a major focus on small scale farmers with production aggregated in a cooperative system.

A key outcome of the plan is improv-ing milk yield per animal with a scien-tific approach to animal breeding and nutrition.

“Milk quality is also becoming an issue with demand rising for value added products including cheese and yoghurts,” Mr Deb said.

New feedlot dairies were coming up with innovative sales and market-ing models, including direct supply of pure milk direct to consumers.

With an assured cool chain, this premium milk was bringing almost

double the price of regular retail product.

“Milk has traditionally been a cheap source of protein for the masses in a country in which the slaughter of cattle is against the law,” Mr Deb said.

Dr Chamberlain said Indian produc-ers had looked to source Holstein dairy genetics from North America in their quest for improved production.

“But significant difficulties have been experienced with herd fertility in the hot and humid Indian environment.

“In our feasibility study, we have rec-ommended the sourcing of tropically adapted Australian dairy genetics.

“The first stage of the project would involve comparison of breeds and eval-uating their performance under local

conditions.“While Friesian-Jersey cross will

be part of the mix, I personally think Brown Swiss genetics from Australia would have a good future in India.

“Brown Swiss have good repro-ductive performance in a hot climate, produce good quality milk with high components and have longevity.”

Dr Chamberlain said there were many herd health challenges in India with foot and mouth disease and bru-cellosis major issues.

“Getting animals back in calf can be a real problem and it is not uncommon for native buffalo in particular to have just one lactation.

“As the importation of live cattle is not possible in India, we’ve

recommended that the project begin with the assembling of a group of local disease free heifers which can then be run largely as a closed herd with implants of sexed embryos sourced from Australia.

“This way we can quickly build up numbers and do performance evalu-ation to take the project to the next level.”

Dr Chamberlain said there was potential for two-way exchange visits to share Australian knowledge of modern dairy farming technology.

“It’s still in the very early stages and it won’t happen overnight. But the com-mercial potential as the dairy industry develops in India is huge,” Dr Cham-berlain said.

GORDON COLLIE

Indian dairy development seeks Australian expertise

Business development manager Anirban Deb with project leader Philip Chamberlain.


WORLD NEWS // 11

A CALIFORNIAN mega dairy farmer who has opened his own plant in the nearby town to pro-cess and sell fresh, glass-bottled milk and make ice cream says he can add $100 to the basic milk price with his premium products.

That’s $100/cwt (1cwt = 0.0508 tonne) – the basic milk price currently is $13-14/cwt. Noel Rosa of Rosa Brothers Milk Com-pany says his glass-bot-tled whole milk adds $50 more but with flavoured milk and premium smaller volume product he can get up to $100 more.

About five-six years ago he says they were looking at building another free stall barn – adding about 700 cows to his 5000-cow operation. They decided instead to open their own processing and manufacturing plant with shop attached in the nearby town of Tulare. “We thought it was less of a risk.”

At the farm Rosa Broth-ers milks 5000 cows and has planted about 242ha of feed crops. The family has had the farm for 60 years but started the manufac-turing operation two and a half years ago. They use about 20% of their own milk for their glass-bottled milk and ice cream prod-ucts and they are bottling the milk from about 200 cows. He would use all his milk if the operation grew large enough.

They offer whole milk, non-fat milk and lactose free. They also have fla-vours such as chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, root beer, and orange and they put whole milk and choco-late milk into smaller con-tainers to sell at donut shops and bakeries and similar. The bigger sellers are chocolate and whole milk which are “neck and neck” followed by straw-berry.

“A lot of people liked the chocolate but they said they were lactose intoler-ant and could not digest the milk so we started

making that in lactose free. In the United States lac-tose free is a growing seg-ment in milk. Overall in the US fluid milk has been on a 30 year decline but there are certain growth sectors in fluid milk: glass bottle, lactose-free and organic are growing.”

They do recyclable glass bottles and only to sell to outlets prepared to collect the bottles for Rosa to recycle.

With the leftover cream from the non-fat milk they started making ice cream.

Flavours include vanilla, chocolate, rocky road, cookies and cream, coconut, chocolate and almonds, chocolate chip and honey nut – they get local almonds and honey directly from someone who has the bees – pista-chio, French cream, coffee and chips, strawberry and banana. The flavours are all natural using real fruit, no artificial colours. Eggnog ice cream has not been a big mover but may be around Christmas. Other dairy farms make artisan cheeses so they sell those also and some other local food products.

They sell at their own shop, deliver in the local area up to two hours away

and have a trailer they take to events.

They are not organic but try to do a few things a bit more naturally so they can claim they have more natural milk. “Our thing is more being fresh and nat-ural.” They do not sell raw milk. “California has a lot of attorneys and lawsuits so we’re not interested in raw milk,” he joked. There is a huge demand for raw milk in the state but he is not interested in the risk.

They process about one tanker load of milk a day. They sell to young people who are single or just have one child and want some-thing more natural and better tasting or older people who don’t buy much milk but when they do they buy for the qual-ity. They buy it for their grandkids. And they have people who are worried about the environment who like the use of glass bottles.

Buyers are not the blue collar workers who have four kids.

“I have a hard time making money on milk by the tanker load in Califor-nia. The money this plant has the potential to make is the equivalent to thou-sands and thousands of cows.”

Californian farmer shows how to add value to milkPAM TIPA

WHEN TOLD about the Fonterra Milk in Schools programme, Californian dairyman Noel Rosa, speaking to visiting New Zealand farmers and journalists, said “That’s no good, don’t do that”.

If you give away milk it gets devalued, he said. “The kids will think there is no value to it.”

Rosa Brothers holds tours bringing in hun-dreds of schoolkids and they charge them – $5 for children and adults. He is not getting rich on the deal, he says, but by charging the visitors they realise there is some value to the tour. They pay to go to the zoo, or the museum, so they can pay for farm tours.

“If we give everything away on a farm level people are going to say ‘it’s not worth anything because you are giving it away’.

“Don’t give milk away,” he urges Kiwis. “They don’t give water away.”

He said school milk tastes terrible and will put children off.

When one of his visiting Fonterra suppliers told Rosa our farmers put millions of dollars into shares in stainless steel in NZ and all over the world, and were not getting adequate returns out of their cooperative, Rosa said: “You know who makes money out of cooperatives? The people you hire to manage your cooperative.”

BAD TASTE

Californian dairy farmer Noel Rosa says he can add $100 to the basic milk price by producing premium products.

www.sumitomo-chem.com.auProGibb® is a registered trademark of Valent BioSciences Corporation, Libertyville, IL, USA.

Scan here to go to www.progibb.com.au

can generate 30 - 60% more dry matter within 3 weeks of application

fill the winter feed gap

“ I’d certainly recommend ProGibb®. We use a fair bit of it. So do our neighbours. It’s all about giving our animals as much fresh feed as we can.”

Evan Bourchier Dairy farmer, Strathmerton Vic

are very good at losing money, they are also good at making money when the milk price rises again and can regain all their losses.

Jessica Lawrence, Alltech territory sales rep in California, and also a dairy farmer through her family’s 2500 cow operation in the Central Valley, says water and government regulation are the biggest threats to dairying. Her family operation is spending $15,000-$20,000 per

Dai ry News aUsTraLia june 2015

12 // world news

California’s ‘star’ dairymen falling out of favour

dAIrYMen In California see themselves as the “star model for dairying” but they are far from creaming it. The milk price of about US$13-16/cwt (1cwt = 0.0508 tonne) is about US$2 below breakeven for most farmers.

They are four years into a drought and fear they will run out of water to grow crops to feed their cows.

State government restrictions mean no more dairy ‘farms’ can be built in California and the dairymen believe the government no longer wants dairying in their state.

E.J. Ruan, who has a 5500 cow dairy in the Central Valley and interests in various farm businesses with up to 20,000 cows in the Central Valley alone, says it’s going to be tough in California for a long time. There are opportunities in other states, such as South Dakota, so he is looking there. But he will stick with his California operation because of the extent of his investment.

“The government won’t allow more expansion in California. In Dakota they are asking for more dairies – a totally different feeling than here in California where they don’t want us anymore.”

The milk price is

based on a formula but there is definitely a correlation between Fonterra’s Global Dairy Trade and their milk prices, he says.

California’s daily dairy production is down about one million pounds on last year – that’s citing the co-op CDR, which Ruan supplies. That’s about 2.5% down on last year so far.

“Beef is good and the [dairymen] are not making any money. A lot of guys were happy to get a good milk price and as soon as they saw it heading back down they sold out. They just didn’t want to go through another downturn.”

But he says though California dairy farmers

annum on water quality. It is “do or die

for dairy farming in California’s Central Valley at the moment, Lawrence says. “The government either needs to relax and let us dairy

or there won’t be dairy.” The government wants housing, she says.

She explains that north of the Central Valley lies San Francisco, which does not understand dairy farming, and southwards is Los Angeles, which doesn’t understand either.

She says they are trying to figure out the science on water, but some of the science is disproving the environmentalists’ theories so they don’t want to know.

There is talk of water storage systems but it is 10 years too late. Some say to get out of the drought it would need to rain every day until the end of the year. The snow melt also needs to get back into the lakes, but another California dairyman says that snow isn’t happening and they aren’t getting the snow melt.

The drought threatens

the whole ag industry, says Lawrence. Farming is trying to adapt its practices, moving to more drought resistant crops and trees.

There’s no more recycling they can do

in dairy. “The only time we use freshwater is when it must be fresh – in water troughs and tank washing. Outside of that it’s all recycled.

“The water threat is if we don’t have enough to grow feed we won’t have enough for the cows to eat – or any other animals for that matter.”

Almost all the water in the dairies is now recycled; the only water not recycled is, for instance, cow drinking water.

“Some people say we will run out of water in a year, then others say we’ve got water for 30 years.” But it is not clear what is available in underground reserves.

In respect of the milk price, breakeven cost is $16.50/cwt (1 cwt = 0.0508 tonne); in April it was $13.91/cwt, but that came off a really good year, she says.

It is supposed to hit $16.00/cwt by the end of the year, she understands. Milk price is based on real-time sales of whey powder, butter, cheese based on a formula.

The milk price is not

Californian dairy farmer EJ Ruan shows Kiwi farmer Blair Murdoch his new medicine storage facility with fingerprint security.

Californian dairy cows.

pAM tIpA

“California is the biggest milk producer in the US but it does not have the most cows. We produce more milk per cow.”


WORLD NEWS // 13

California’s ‘star’ dairymen falling out of favourdirectly related to global prices but it still relates to them. A lot of the whey sold in California is not accounted for in this price; some are arguing they should go back on the federal system. The Market Protection Plan – an insurance scheme which kicks in when milk prices drop below a certain level - is not in effect in Central Valley as the plan is based on federal prices.

Lawrence sees California as the “star model of dairies”. A lot of people come to see their dairies, from the US and overseas. Within the US the dairy facilities will be comparable. The size might be different.

“The difference is what we feed; we have ability to use by-product that no one else in the world has access to.” In February she had a nutritionist visit from Wisconsin. “He knows nutrition, he knows the dairy industry. He was blown away by what we feed and how we feed it. It’s what we feed and how we feed it and the flat land that is the success of our dairy.”

In 2009-2010 many dairies went out of business. The cow numbers in California did not change – the bigger guys got bigger. The ones that are still here added facilities or cow numbers. A few facilities went – older facilities that needed to go, she says.

When drought hits, the Californians don’t stop producing, Lawrence says. The farmers speculate that if they all dumped their milk they would change

the market in a day. The problem is the

banks lend money based on production and cow numbers. So if today you got a loan based on 2000 cows, then next day cut your herd to 1500 cows, the bank would pull your loan to give you a smaller loan. Hence the controversy: when the milk price drops, the farmers need bigger loans, but the banks say ‘if you want bigger loans, you need more cows’.

“California is the biggest milk producer in the US but it does not have the most cows. We produce more milk per cow.”

Government threats to viability are increasing the regulation of water and air quality; the subject of methane gas has caused a lot of talk of a tax. Air quality also includes dust control. Air quality is a lot easier to deal with than water quality, says Lawrence.

She would rather see her water quality inspector once a week than once a year.

She has to test her lagoon water for irrigating, measure the amount of water they are using, test well water to see if they are leaching into the water supply, and test crops at harvest and soil samples. “They say ‘water quality’ but it incorporates a lot of different management practices.” • Dairy News reporter Pam Tipa visited California dairy farms with a group of New Zealand dairy farmers and Alltech representatives on the way to Alltech’s REBELation Symposium in Lexington, Kentucky last month.

Jessica Lawrence,

Alltech, with her father

Manual (centre)

and brother Jonathan on

the family farm.

READ IT ALL WITHUS ONLINE

BREAKING NEWS MANAGEMENT STORIES MACHINERY REVIEWS AND MUCH MORE...

www.dairynewsaustralia.com.au

ENEGELTM IMPROVES PRODUCTIVITY AND REDUCES

ACIDOSIS RISK

Quality Stockfeeds

AUSTRALASIA’S LARGEST AND MOST INNOVATIVE SUPPLIER OF CO-PRODUCT STOCK FEEDS

EXCITING NEW FEED

CJ1

1698

ENEGELTM is especially formulated for our grass-based dairy system.

• ENHANCED Milk Production

• ENHANCED Protein Levels• COMPLETE Adlib Feeding• REDUCE Labour and Effort• GELANTINISED STARCH

AMAZING TRIAL RESULTS - CALL FOR A COPY TODAYBrian Thompson 0417 405 098 (Northern Vic)Neil Cope 0429 979 222 (Gippsland)Rob Mathieson 0439 394 676 (Western Vic)

Castlegatejames.com.au

MICRO AND MACRO MINERAL BLENDS AVAILABLE

CJ11698_280x187_Dairy News.indd 1 26/05/2015 12:22 pm


14 // OPINION

MILKING IT...

RUMINATING

EDITORIAL

Advertising�Chris Dingle 0417.735.001

[email protected]

Editor��Stephen Cooke 03.9478 9779 or 0427.124 437 [email protected]

� Publisher� Brian Hight

� Production� �Dave Ferguson Becky Williams

Sub�Editor Pamela Tipa

� Published�by RNG Publishing Ltd

� Printed�by Shepperton News

Dairy News Australia is published by RNG

Publishing Limited. All editorial copy and

photographs are subject to copyright and

may not be reproduced without prior written

permission of the publisher. Opinions or

comments expressed within this publication are

not necessarily those of the staff, management

or directors of RNG Publishing Limited. WWW.DAIRYNEWSAUSTRALIA.COM.AU

�Head�Office��Top Floor, 29 Northcroft Street, Auckland 0622, New Zealand

Phone�+64.9.307 0399 Fax�+64.9.307 0122

Postal�address��PO Box 331100, Takapuna,Auckland 0740, New Zealand

Pull the other legSupermarket market-ing 101: When turning the screws on your suppliers, remember to heavily invest in marketing to enhance your reputation with the general public.

Woolworths are at it again. The company that sells $1/litre milk (and increases its range of private label products at the expense of Australian companies) is now “proud supporter of Australian farmers”.

They’ve paid big bucks to AFL players Ben Cun-nington and Tom Hawkins to kick a footy in their TV ad - on top of the big bucks paid to become “official white milk of the AFL” and the big bucks paid to Channel 7 for airtime to run their ad.

It’s a lot of money that could have been added to the supply chain where it would have found its way to farmers.

Wrong country, mateThere were plenty of raised eyebrows when this quote from Canadian agricul-ture consultant, Bertrand Montel, made its way to Australia in the wake of Saputo’s decision to en-force new animal welfare guidelines across its milk supply network.

“In Canada, the imagery of dairy farming is still the small farm with cows in the field. It’s not associated with any kind of animal-welfare issues,” Mr Montel told Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper.

The paper then said: Mr Montel said Saputo’s new policy is likely aimed at the United States and Australia, which are dominated by large factory farms where keeping track of employee behaviour is difficult and finding and training good employees is hard.

Factory farms in Australia? It’s the same line trotted out by animal rights groups that use images of the US to ad-vance their cause with the unsuspecting and gullible in Australia.

You can shake your head but unfortunately it damages our international reputation.

Dark milk lightens sleep woesHaving trouble sleeping? You may want to try a spe-cially concocted brand of ‘dark milk’ being produced at New Zealand farms.

Canterbury’s Synlait Milk has discovered that if you milk cows after the sun has gone down, and then again in a darkened shed before it comes up, the milk has higher levels of the hormone melatonin, known to help regulate sleep cycles.

Synlait research manager Simon Causer says melatonin levels in night milk can be four to 10 times higher than in normal milk.

Dozens of Canterbury farms have now started adjusting their milking schedules up to 30 days every year to provide spe-cial orders of dark milk.

Thanks mum – notWe giggled when we received one of this pesky emails/adverts suggesting possible gifts for Mother’s Day.

One particular email from a rural retail supplier offered an alluring array of gifts for mum.

The choices were a pair of woollen gloves, a rain jacket, a set of thermals and a nice, new pair of gumboots: all excellent ways of keeping hard-working mum out on the farm in the cold weather.

We’re not sure if any bloke was brave/stupid enough to buy one of these ‘practical gifts’, but suggest these ideas would have gone down about as well as giving an ironing board or a vacuum cleaner for Mothers’ Day.

Practical ideas but very, very stupid.

DAIRY FARMERS received a somewhat unexpected wake-up call when flicking through their Twitter feed earlier this month.

News had come through from Canada that dairy giant Saputo, which owns the Warrnambool Cheese and Butter Factory, had created a new code of practice for its suppliers.

It was in response to a video secretly taken on the farm of one of its largest Canadian suppliers last year, where employees were kicking cows.

Much like we’ve seen with secret footage shown on 4 Corners in Australia, it created negative headlines in the metro media.

This was particularly alarming for Saputo, which has seen milk consumption among the Canadian public decline over the past decade.

It knew it had to be proactive in the court of public opinion and earlier this month implemented a new policy on livestock welfare for all of its suppliers, including Australia.

Saputo’s plan unveiled earlier this month includes a commit-ment to end tail docking and the use of pain control when dis-budding calves.

Unfortunately, as good as the vast majority of farmers across all sectors are, it takes one video like this – and the subsequent back-lash - to show they are not entirely in control of their own fate.

Processors spend millions on product development and mar-keting and must cater to the public.

If farmers want to supply them, they must abide by their rules.This turn of events reminded us of the United Dairyfarmers

of Victoria conference earlier this year.The Wannon branch of the UDV moved a motion that calving

induction should be phased out within three years.Wannon branch member Chris O’Keefe said using calving

induction as a herd management tool had “probably had its day” and that it presented a very poor image and potential market risk.

“Acting now, we can transition away from calving inductions on our own terms, rather than at the behest of animal activists or government intervention,” Mr O’Keefe said.

After some debate, delegates at the UDV conference passed a resolution to “phase out calving induction” with the amend-ment to drop the three year timeframe - in line with the Austra-lian Dairy Farmers (ADF) current stance.

Some farmers believe the choice is theirs alone – and they can swim against the tide of consumer sentiment - but as we’ve seen with Saputo, the tide can turn very quickly.

Tide of public sentiment can turn quickly


IN RESPONSE to Brian Tessmann’s opinion piece in the April Dairy News Australia (“Lifting the lid on Farmers Own milk”), if the Wool-worths label ‘Farmers Own’ is smoke and mir-rors then all dairy farmers should be leaving smoke signals.

On behalf of the farmers supplying Farm-ers Own ‘Fresh from the Manning Valley’ NSW, it would have been great if contact was made with us to get the real story.

As the chairman of our local Collective Bargain-ing Group from its inception in 2001, I have fought the long fight with proces-sors and supermarkets, and government for that matter. Farmers Own devel-oped out of frustration from our inabil-ity to extract a fair price for our product from any of the established processors picking up from our catchment.

We all have something to sell that is clean, fresh and sustainable, produced by herds looked after by family farms.

Farmers Own offered a chance to receive a premium for provenance and high quality standards. Perhaps even

more importantly, we were able to start from a blank slate with contract terms, with we farmers doing much of the

drafting using our own legal representatives.

Woolies had no pre-conceived ideas and was open to all fair and reasonable sugges-tions: what a contrast to trying to get one of the foreign-owned pro-cessors to change even a single clause.

We were motivated by knowing that if we were successful, Woo-lies would take the

Farmers Own concept nationally, ben-efitting many more farmers.

They have been true to their word. In light of the NSW success, Farmers Own has been expanded to selected regions of WA, QLD, Victoria and soon, SA.

Small groups of farmers in each of these states have been willing to oper-ate at higher standards, embracing the idea of producing milk that would be locally branded, with components that are allowed to vary with the seasons and are not ‘standardised’ to suit the proces-sors’ economics.

Consumers are loving it! Back to basics, quality in, quality out, don’t stuff with a good product.

Any new milk buyers enter-ing the market, especially a local market, will breed competition. If we have more competition for our milk then we all have a shot at a better price.

I applaud farmers who have the guts to develop on-farm plants and boutique milk sales.

These guys, one by one, also lift the price for others.

We as dairy farmers should celebrate every success because it makes our industry stronger, especially at the farmgate label.

Processors need to know we will not stand around forever and cop it on the chin.

When Woolies announced the best deal with us, not two weeks later Coles announced a deal with Murray Goul-burn. Coles is not dealing direct with the farmers, as Woolies is, but a new deal for MG suppliers eventuated.

This caused a chain reaction, with Lion learning they would lose their con-tract to Coles more than nine months out.

Lion reacted by trying to tie up

larger farmers with longer term contracts and with more attrac-tive prices.

MG then had no choice but to move immediately and start signing new sup-pliers for a Sydney plant not yet built let alone ready to receive milk.

MG moved early and lifted the price to all suppliers, but who caused this?

On the battlefield they m easured gains in grounds by yards, why should we not measure it by individual farm-ers achieving better terms?

Farmers Own could lead to a lot

more milk in direct supply with closer links between farm-ers, retailers and consumers. Processors stop being middlemen and become con-tract packers. It would help if our indus-try ‘leaders’, who have been less than successful in achieving improved prices for the many, obtained the facts before condemning those willing to try a dif-ferent model.• Tim Bale is a dairy farmer from Stew-arts River, NSW, and chairman of the Manning Valley Fresh Group.

OPINION // 15

Don’t condemn us for breaking the mould

Consumers are loving it! Back to basics, quality in, quality out, don’t

Any new milk buyers enter-ing the market, especially a local market, will breed competition. If we have more competition for our milk then we all have a shot at a

I applaud farmers who have

Processors need to know we will not larger farmers with longer

DAI RY NEWS AUSTRALIA APRIL 2015

OPINION // 17

THE LAUNCH last month by Woolworths Supermarkets of their “Farmers Own” brand of milk, which is of course owned by Woolworths, was heavy with rhetoric about being better for the farmer and cutting out the middleman.That middleman referred to, I assume, is supposed to be the milk processor who is usually the purchaser of the milk directly from the dairy farmers. In this process the milk then, after processes such as pasteurisation, is sold either to or through retail outlets ranging from local service stations to large supermarkets and from there to the consumer.

As I understand it the ‘Farmers Own’ brand milk is still picked up by a tanker and taken to the processor (in this case Parmalat) for processing and then deliv-ered to the retailer, in this case Wool-worths, which is pretty much the same process as for every other litre of milk produced in this state.This model and the ‘Farmers Own’

brand has been tri-alled by Woolworths for some time in NSW with milk sourced from a small number of mid-north coast dairy farmers around the Manning Valley.

In reality what this model does is not leave out the pro-cessor but instead the supermarket does the dealing on price and supply conditions with the farmers and does a separate deal with the processor, in this case Par-malat, and others in the supply chain to transport and process the milk and get the milk through the supply chain from the dairy to the supermarkets stores. Much of the publicity on the launch in Queensland of the ‘Farmers Own’ brand was about it being a better deal for the farmer. I assume it is claiming that the two Sunshine Coast farmers who are apparently supplying the milk are getting a better deal than the aver-age Queensland dairy farmer’s returns. What is not clear to me is how and whether it will have any benefit for the

other 450 dairy farm-ers in the state.

While no one begrudges the two farmers con-cerned from get-ting a better deal, explained as a ‘sus-tainable price’, for their milk if they can, and we wish them well for the future with the new arrange-ment, the spin put out in the launch public-ity that it was good for the industry is much more unclear to me.

In fact I am also still struggling to see any real identifiable benefit for the wider farm population from the trial of the brand in NSW which has been oper-ating there for some time.At a time when major retailers are

trying to convince the powers that be in Canberra that they can be trusted with a voluntary code, you could be forgiven yet again for questioning whether they are pushing

the spin too far.The deals that have been done in other states have been launched with much fanfare, but the market share achieve-ment claims have not been ver-ified compared with the sales of the unsustainably priced retail branded milk.

Over the past four years since Coles started the supermarket milk price war by launching the $1 milk campaign, QDO and I am sure many other groups have been approached by various organisa-tions trying to develop a brand of milk that would have the support of dairy farmers and/or the QDO or another dairy group.While the QDO is always ready to listen to ideas, the key criteria for us is, whether it will improve the farm-gate price for most if not all dairy farmers in Queensland.

Up to this time we have not been able to identify such a scheme which will gain the required support from key stakeholders. • Brian Tessmann is president of the Queensland Dairyfarmers’ Organisa-tion.

Lifting the lid on Farmers Own milk

OPINIONBRIAN TESSMANN

other 450 dairy farm-

While no one begrudges the two farmers con-cerned from get-ting a better deal, explained as a ‘sus-tainable price’, for their milk if they can, and we wish them well for the future with the new arrange-ment, the spin put out in the

struggling to see any real identifiable benefit for the trying to convince

the spin too far.

done in other states have been launched with much fanfare, but the market share achieve-ment claims have not been ver-ified compared with the sales of the unsustainably priced retail branded milk.Over the past four years since Coles started the supermarket milk price war by launching the $1 milk campaign, QDO and I am sure many other groups have been approached by various organisa-tions trying to develop a brand of milk that would have the support of dairy farmers and/or the QDO or another dairy group.

While the QDO is always ready to listen to ideas, the key criteria for us is, whether it will improve the farm-gate price for most if not all dairy farmers in Queensland. Up to this time we have not been able to identify such a scheme which will gain the required support from key

www.dairynewsaustralia.com.au

Check us out Online BREAKING NEWS MANAGEMENT STORIES MACHINERY REVIEWS AND MUCH MORE...

OPINIONTIM BALE

$ 880,000 InstalledSpecial Deal Available ONLY Until June 30th 2015. Price is Ex Gst (Conditions Apply)

CONTACTPh. (03) 9768 2424 - Fax (03) 9768 2323 - Greg Kinross 0437 357 912

[email protected]

50 Bail Rotary Dairy ComplexEXCLUSIONS•Earthworks•Electricity Supply to Site•Water Supply to Site•Water Storage•Effluent System•Tanker Tracks•Cow Laneways•Milk Storage Tank•Freight (At Cost)

INCLUSIONS•50 Bail RotorExp1 Platform•LARSEN Original Design•Pneumatic Retention Bars•21m x 26m Shed•Technical Drawings and Comps•6m x 4m Skillion - for Vac Pumps•Shed and Yard Concrete•500 Cow Holding Yard & Rails•16m Solid Backing Gate•Feed System with 2 x Feed Heads•Yard Blaster with 3 x Hydrants•3 Way Drafting Gate•Internal Office (Freezer Panel Room)•Milking Machine•Pneumatic Cup Remover•ID, Feeding and Drafting•Internal Electrical•Internal Plumbing $ 880,000 Installed


16 // MARKETS

INTERNATIONAL DAIRY mar-kets remain depressed, with abundant supply and lacklustre demand continu-ing to weigh on pricing.

On farm however, the results of Dairy Australia’s 2015 National Dairy Farmer Survey (NDFS) indicate that confidence in the future of the Austra-lian industry has remained high over the past year.

Almost three quarters of dairy farm-ers (74%) reported feeling positive about the industry’s future – 1% fewer than 2014.

A total of 79% of farmers anticipate a profit in the current season, while 41% have increased herd sizes and 52% have increased milk production (imply-ing yield gains have also played a part).

Stable sentiment is translating to investment on farm: 52% of respon-dents indicated intentions to invest in their enterprises over the next 12 months.

There are some differences in trend by region however, with more wide-spread confidence (up from 31% in 2013 to the current 5-year high of 55%) evident in the Subtropical Dairy region (Queensland and northern NSW) amid fewer concerns about farmgate milk price.

In Victoria (particularly western) confidence has been eroded slightly by unease regarding whether cur-

rent prices will be maintained into the coming season and beyond.

More broadly, cost pressures are mixed. Grain and hay markets have taken note of the Bureau of Meteorology lifting their ENSO indicator to ‘El Niño’ in mid-May.

With limited supply concerns glob-ally at the time of writing, devaluation of the Australian dollar and the dry out-look have seen a gap opening between international benchmark and domestic wheat prices.

Hay prices remained relatively static due to slow demand through early 2015, though the downside production risk posed by an El Niño is likely to discour-age producers from selling early as far as this season’s harvest is concerned.

Against a backdrop of stable farm-gate prices and generally favourable weather conditions, Australian milk production has tracked ahead of expec-tations for much of the season.

With two good years behind them, many farmers are well placed to take advantage of the opportunities a third would provide.

Should current processor milk price forecasts be borne out and El Niño impacts remain moderate, further growth is likely in the southern states.

Western Australia will see more milk change hands as processors adjust their strategies, while the Queensland pro-

duction sector searches for stability in the face of severe and ongoing cost and climatic pressures.

Internationally, most farmers in major export regions are enjoying favourable weather and global milk supply growth has rolled on, despite a darkening farmgate price outlook for many.

Production expectations continue to reflect a slowdown during 2015, but at the moment, this seems a long way off.

Buying interest for powders out of China remains relatively quiet, and assessments of the timeframe for a sig-nificant recovery in activity are increas-ingly being pushed into early 2016.

There is also growing expectation that Russia’s import ban will outlast the initially announced 12-month term, possibly with a wider set of exceptions for selected countries.

A prolonged period of low prices has seen double digit volume growth in exports to Southeast Asia, Mexico and the Middle East, but this growth is now moderating as supply pipelines are refilled.

On a positive note, a firm US domes-tic market is helping soak up that coun-try’s surplus milk; while dairy exports to Japan for the 12 months to February were at their highest since 2007, after the strongest growth since 2005.

Back home, the most recent update to Dairy Australia’s ‘Food Service Index’ shows strong growth in spend-ing through both the food service and supermarket channels, though the pace of growth has slowed in recent months. Australian supermarket sales of major dairy categories continue to tell an essentially positive story.

Dairy spreads remain the star per-former, outpacing all other major dairy categories for both volume and value growth.

Milk sales are increasing slowly and steadily. Despite shrinking sales vol-umes, higher average per kilo prices for both the cheese and yogurt/dairy snacks categories are reflected in continued category value growth.

Considered something of a ‘hand-brake’ on industry returns through the buoyant 2013/14 season, the Australian domestic market (which consumes around 60% of milk production) has helped cushion the industry through a volatile 2014/15.

Maintaining an appropriate bal-ance between the pursuit of poten-tially lucrative new opportunities, and securing sustainable returns in more mature and stable markets, will be no less important in 2015/16 and beyond.

Dairy Australia’s full June 2015 Sit-uation and Outlook will be released on June 17.

The National Dairy Farmer Survey shows confi dence is at a fi ve-year high in the Subtropical Dairy region (Queensland and northern NSW) amidst fewer concerns about farmgate milk price.

Survey shows farmers remain positive about the future

74%Farmers positive

about industry future(2014 – 75%)

79%Anticipating profit in

2014/15

52%Increased production

in 2014/15

41%Increased herd size in

2014/15

52%Intending to invest next 12 months

National results at a glance.

Dairy Australia National Dairy Farmer Survey

GLOBAL IMPACTJOHN DROPPERT

Dairy NewS aUSTraLia june, 2012

With season 2011/12 only a few weeks from ending, attention is now focused on 2012/13 milk prices as farm-ers consider strategies for the coming year. In some domestically-focused regions, renegotiated contracts incor-porating lower prices and reduced ‘tier one’ access are undermining farmer confidence and supply stability. For many farmers in export-oriented regions, a lower price outlook relative to the current season not only adds to the challenges of doing business, but seems to contradict the positive medium term outlook of Asia-driven dairy demand growth.

Dairy Australia’s indicative outlook for southern farm gate milk prices – published in the recent Dairy 2012: Sit-uation and Outlook report, is for an opening price range of $4.05-$4.40/kg MS and a full year average price range between $4.50 and $4.90/kg MS. The report considers the wider market pic-ture and summarises the many factors at play; the key theme of the current sit-uation being that of re-balancing in the dairy supply chain.

In regions of Australia focused on producing drinking milk, many farmers face a re-balancing market in the form of renegotiation of supply contracts and reduced access to ‘tier one’ supply.

Shifts in private label contracts and pro-cessor rationalisation have seen milk companies adjust their intake require-ments and pricing to meet the chang-ing demands of a highly pressured retail marketplace. Lower contract prices and a lack of alternative supply opportuni-ties present challenges in a market with limited manufacturing capacity. Despite these challenges, the underlying domes-tic market is stable, with steady per-cap-ita dairy consumption and a growing population providing a degree of cer-tainty beyond the current adjustments.

In the seasons following the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent com-modity price recovery, farmers in export-oriented regions have seen solid global supply growth (see chart) - with higher-cost competitors in the North-ern Hemisphere amongst those expand-ing output as their margins increased. This season, favourable weather con-ditions have further enhanced milk

flows. 2012 milk production in the US is up around 4% on 2011 for the year to April (leap year adjusted), whilst early data suggests EU-27 milk production finished the March 2012 quota year up 2.3% on the previous year. New Zealand production is widely expected to finish this season up 10% on last year - a huge market influence given 95% of NZ milk is exported. Argentina is also enjoy-ing solid production growth, but a sig-nificant supply gap in Brazil prevents much of this additional milk from leav-ing South America.

Despite wider economic uncer-tainty, demand has remained resilient as importing countries like China and

those in south-east Asia and the Middle East maintain consistently higher eco-nomic growth rates that support increased dairy consumption. How-ever, the surge in supply has outpaced demand growth in the market.

This situation has seen the scales tip in favour of buyers in dairy mar-kets, with commodity prices retreat-ing steadily over recent months. Butter prices are down some 30% from their 2011 peaks, whilst powder prices have lost more than 20%. Farm gate prices have subsequently been reduced in most exporting regions. The average basic farm gate price for milk in France for example, dropped 12% from 32 Euro

cents/litre in March (AUD 41c/L) to 28 Euro cents/litre (AUD 36c/L) in April. Profit margins are under pressure in the US, and in NZ Fonterra has announced the final payout for the 2011/12 season has been cut from NZ$6.75-$6.85/kg MS to NZ$6.45-$6.55/kg MS (AUD$4.96-$5.04).

Effectively, global dairy markets are rebalancing. Lower prices will both slow production growth and stimulate demand, and as this occurs we will ulti-mately see a price recovery. Key factors to watch on the global scene will be the rate at which milk production overseas slows in response to lower prices, the impact of the current financial worries on consumer confidence, the path of China’s economic growth, and the value of the Australian dollar.

Demand for exported dairy prod-ucts remains a positive and will con-tinue to grow with the middle class in large emerging markets such as China, with changes in diet and with increasing urbanisation - and also in conjunction with global population growth. Locally, the domestic market is supported by a growing population and stable per-capita consumption. Whilst the dairy market is currently a challenging place to be a seller, all signs indicate that bal-ance will ultimately return.

agribusiness // 17

austraLian FooD company Freedom Foods Group Ltd is to build a new milk processing plant to cash in on growing demand in Asia.

The plant, to be built in southeast Australia, will be the first Australian green-fields expansion in UHT in 10 years.

Freedom’s wholly owned subsidiary Pactum Australia will run the plant. Some of its products will be sold in Australia.

The company says given Asian consum-ers’ rising incomes and improving diets, demand there will grow for qual-ity dairy products from low-cost production bases such as Australia, whose milk is well regarded.

The new plant will allow Pactum to meet growing demand for UHT dairy milk, and add to capacity for value-added beverages at its Sydney factory. Pactum is expanding its capabili-ties at the Sydney plant

to provide portion pack (200-330ml) configura-tion for beverage prod-ucts.

The NSW location will provide access to the most sustainable and economic source of milk. Pactum has strong links to the Austra-lian dairy industry and will expand its arrangements with dairy farmers for supply of milk. The new plant will increase scope for Australian milk supply – value-added, sustainable and export focused.

Initially the plant will produce 250ml and 1L UHT packs from a process line capable of 100 mil-lion L. The processing and packaging plant will emit less carbon, use less water, and be more energy-effi-cient than equivalent UHT facilities in Austra-lia and SE Asia. Pactum expects site preparation to begin in October 2012 and start-up by mid-2013.

Pactum makes UHT products for private label and proprietary customers.

Freedom Foods planttargets Asia

Malaysia FTA benefits dairyaustraLian DairY, rice and wine exporters to Malaysia are the biggest winners in a free trade agreement (FTA) signed between the two coun-tries last month.

The deal, signed after seven years of negotia-tions, allows a liberalised licensing arrangement for Australian liquid milk exporters and allows access for higher value retail products.

It guarantees Aus-tralian wine exporters the best tariff treatment Malaysia gives any coun-try. It also allows open access arrangements from 2023 for Australian rice with all tariffs eliminated by 2026.

The National Farmers’ Federation says the trade deal will improve inter-national market access for Australian agricultural goods.

“After seven years of negotiation, the NFF is under no illusion of how challenging it has been to complete this FTA with Malaysia,” NFF vice presi-dent Duncan Fraser says.

The FTA will fill a number of gaps within the

ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand FTA (AANZFTA).

“Protectionist senti-ment over agricultural goods is rife and grow-ing across the globe, so in this context it is pleas-ing Australia has managed to forge an agreement with Malaysia that has dealt with some sensi-tive agricultural issues not effectively covered by AANZFTA,” says Fraser.

“While under the AANZFTA agreement most of Australian agri-culture’s key interests had tariffs bound at zero, dairy and rice are two sec-tors where incremental market access improve-ments have been negoti-ated under the Malaysian FTA.

“This trade deal was also particularly impor-tant for sectors such as dairy that have been facing a competitive dis-advantage in Malaysia compared with New Zea-land which already has a completed FTA with Malaysia in place.”

The FTA also sig-nals some administrative benefits for Austra-lian agricultural export-

ers through streamlining of rules-of-origin dec-laration processes and improved marketing arrangements for certain commodities.

The Malaysian market is worth about A$1 bil-lion in Australia agricul-tural exports – including being its fourth-largest sugar export market and fifth-largest wheat export market. With an annual economic growth at about 5%, Malaysia forms an impor-tant part of the ‘Asian Century’ story and the opportunity this presents for Australian agricultural producers, says Fraser.

Despite the comple-tion of this agreement, much remains to be done for Australia’s farmers to tap into the full potential of the Asian region and beyond.

He says the NFF will now throw its attention towards ensuring agricul-ture remains front and centre in completed FTAs with South Korea, Japan, China and Indonesia as immediate priorities.

“These are all markets with enormous growth opportunities and where significant barriers to trade in agriculture still exist, not only through tariffs that restrict trade

but also through technical or so called ‘behind the border’ restrictions.”

The FTA was signed on May 22 in Kuala Lumpur by Australia’s Trade and Competiveness Minis-ter Craig Emerson and his Malaysian counterpart Mustapa Mohamed.

Emerson says Australia will be as well-positioned in the Malaysian market as Malaysia’s closest trad-ing partners in ASEAN, and in some cases better. The FTA will guarantee tariff-free entry for 97.6% of current goods exports from Australia once it enters into force. This will rise to 99% by 2017.

incremental change in milk production (year-on-year)

Export demand remains strong

Sealing the deal: Malaysian trade minister Mustapha Mohamed with Australian counterpart Craig Emerson after signing the deal.

gLobaL impacTJohN DropperT

016-017.indd 17 6/06/12 1:41 PM

EFFLUENT SPREADING SOLUTIONS

Available for sale and hire from the leaders in muck machinery!

Galvanised solid spreaders (8-24 cubic metres)

Muck Runner – Superior In Quality And DesignTom 0419 851543 | www.pichonindustries.com | www.remorquerolland.com | [email protected]

Large volume solid spreaders (up to 40 cubic metres)

Slurry tankers (up to 30000L)

Slurry stirrers (5m, 7m, 10m)


MARKETS // 17

WE MIGHT harp on about the increasing vola-tility and interconnected-ness of commodity trends and forces. But these days the commodities affect-ing the short-term outlook for dairy markets aren’t simply those related to farm inputs or competing foods such as palm oil and soybeans.

The bigger arm-wres-tles being played out – and affecting the $A return for dairy exports - are in oil and iron ore.

The price of crude oil sank like a stone between July 2014 and February this year after the OPEC cartel (12 countries that control 80% of oil pro-duction) colluded in lift-ing production, creating an over-supply to flat-ten prices and try to run higher-cost oil produc-ers out of business. OPEC hopes to reverse the US moves towards energy self-sufficiency and push it back towards greater import dependence.

How has oil knocked onto the dairy market? At a very basic first glance good news – it in theory cuts the cost of fuel on farm, and the cost of freight.

In the US, cheaper oil has a double-edge effect but the jury is out on the result. When ethanol is less attractive at lower fuel prices, it creates a glut in feed supply, cuts the value of corn and soybeans in global trade and keeps a lid on world feed grain prices. Only weather can mess things up after that.

Lower feed costs flow into better margins for US milk producers and sus-tain a better rate of output growth. But lower fuels prices should also mean more people drive out to family restaurants and eat more cheese! Indeed, foodservice sales in the US are booming right now.

But if you step back fur-ther this isn’t playing out so well, and in fact is con-tributing significantly to the imbalance in global dairy markets. Most of those big high-cost oil pro-

ducers are important dairy importers that are fairly sensitive to prices. This summary (below), pro-duced by the Wall Street Journal paints the stark reality.

In 2013, the combined markets of Russia, Vene-zuela and the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region were critical to dairy trade. The losses in oil margin are help-ing break the Russian economy, already deep in rancid brown stuff with the effects of West-ern sanctions over its foray into the Crimea. Some speculate that the Russian dairy import embargo might end in a few months, but the poor financial situation and

weak rouble means trad-ers have no money anyway to buy product, either way imports are not an option.

Venezuela was, a few short years ago, a market for more than 200,000 tonnes of whole milk powder which got into strife before oil crashed, but a recovery in that once-huge powder market would be a miracle at cur-rent oil prices.

Algeria, the largest MENA importer, is a criti-cal market for the EU and New Zealand, especially since Russia and China have taken a breather. Dairy exporters are now watching it and other MENA markets anxiously to see how long before the slump in oil starts to cut

into consumer spending and import volumes.

Oil prices have cau-tiously drifted up since their bottoming in lower than $50/barrel in late January and have peeped over $60, while most fore-casters suggest it won’t pass $70/barrel by the end of the year. This game has some way to play out unless OPEC blinks.

While the oil game is being managed by big sup-pliers, the other big game playing out is being man-aged by a key buyer.

What has emerged more clearly in recent weeks is how China is seeking to take major steps to lock in lower-cost supply of iron ore to fund the next stages of nation-building, i.e. proj-

ects to build vast shiny towers of steel that will hopefully stabilise eco-nomic growth and stim-ulate better consumer spending. Not all of the supposed next round of stimulus spending needs doing at home, as China’s investment leaders have reckoned that putting cap-ital into a number of over-seas iron ore producers in South America and by pos-sibly rescuing Twiggy and Fortescue, it can keep sup-plies flowing, competition healthy and prices down – and in fact save much more money in buying the next slew of iron ore.

Money markets have long placed emphasis on mineral commodities as a key driver of Australian fortunes, and hence the

value of the $A has tracked the falling value of iron ore very closely after ship-ments to China slowed. The oversupplied iron ore market has helped pull the value of the $A down, at a crucial time given the oversupplied dairy market.

If a $6/kg milk price is going to be a reality next year, the iron ore game needs to keep running, and the game in oil probably needs to change direction. Oh … and China’s stim-ulus should get going to spur more milk consump-tion too.• Steve Spencer is a direc-tor of Freshagenda, a Mel-bourne-based consulting and analysis firm that provides food value chain insights and solutions to a wide range of clients from farm to retail.

FRESH AGENDASTEVE SPENCER

The game theories affecting incomes

FRESHAGENDA’S AUSTRA-LIAN dairy export index finished the May at 162 points, losing 6 points in the month, as dairy commodity spot prices searched for the bottom of this market cycle.

The month of May saw further car-nage in the spot prices table with each of the major milk powders losing $350/tonne, while losses in cheese were more subdued at less than $100/tonne.

Have we reached the bottom? You would hope so – skimmed milk powder reached its lowest average price on the GDT auction since the auction began.

The market is still heavily favouring buyers with Chinese dairy companies waiting until there is sufficient room in their storage sheds to resume buying larger volumes of milk powder, while a number of other importers stocked up while prices have been low, now have plenty for a while.

The short-term outlook doesn’t suggest exportable milk supply is going to hit a wall any time soon. European

wholesale prices and trades in spot milk are confirming the anecdotal leaks from region - there is milk expansion occur-ring post-quota in several low-cost regions, despite farmgate milk prices falling to 30 euro cents and below. The US has also got plenty in the tank with farm margins holding up and many regions growing quickly to offset the effects of drought on the west coast. The additional milk only goes to one place – milk powder.

This month’s story could have been a lot worse were it not for the 5c fall in the Australian dollar against the US currency in the second half of May as the outlook for commodity metal prices worsened and reality about the weakening state of the $A economy took the currency to a month-close of US76cents.

The index is a lead indicator of average export returns - based on spot prices, currency movements and export mix. The index measures cur-rent market sentiment, but in reality it

takes 3 to 6 months for prices to trans-late into actual returns, depending on

the timing of contract negotiations. It was set to 100 in January 2000.

• For weekly updates, follow us on Twitter or visit http://www.freshagenda.com.au/

Searching for the bottom


18 // MANAGEMENT

Working with ineffi cient rumens for best results

RUMINANT PRODUC-ERS should embrace new technologies and be faster

and more adaptable in their businesses than anyone else, according to Alltech chief innovation officer Aidan Connolly at the com-pany’s REBELation Sym-

posium in Kentucky last month.

Alltech is a biotechnol-ogy and leading animal nutrition company. Its core business is improv-

ing animal health and performance by adding nutritional value with innovative use of yeast fermentation, enzyme technology, algae and

nutrigenomics which stud-ies the impact of nutrition at genetic level.

Connolly told the sym-posium, attended by the Dairy News, that clearly

there is an efficiency issue with ruminant ani-mals versus other ani-mals. Ruminants appear to be not as efficient at con-verting food to produc-tion albeit different types of feedstuffs are being consumed. The genetic variation of ruminant ani-mals is much greater than with other species such as chickens, he says. “The digestibility factor of eval-uating how ruminant for-ages are digested is very variable as well and we need to be introducing new technologies.”

He says ruminant pro-ducers should embrace new technologies and be faster and more adaptable in their businesses than anyone else.

Steps which can be taken include:Feed efficiency

Alltech is involved in a system called vitro fer-mentation model (IFM). This allows real time anal-ysis of what cows are con-suming. It tracks digestion to show how those forages and feeds are digested in the rumen. Issues relating to rumen efficiency can be addressed immediately.

A sample showed a ‘before’ diet which was inefficiently digested. The diet was rebalanced by replacing blood meal with soya bean meal and Optigen (an Alltech prod-uct which is a non-protein nitrogen (NPN) source for ruminants) and using the IFM technique they increased milk production by 2.8kg/cow and intake by 0.45kg on a daily basis.

“This shows how we need to recreate what is happening in the rumen and predict and therefore change the diets to make it work,” says Connolly.Carbon footprint

“Rather than look-ing at carbon footprint as being a problem for rumi-nant animals, we need to look at it as an opportu-nity,” he says. “If we can make that rumen work more efficiently, if we have less nutrient waste in the urine, we can make that ruminant animal more efficient and therefore make milk or meat more efficiently produced. So

this leads to a carbon cal-culator. The most excit-ing thing from this is we can make more money by addressing this issue.”Seed to beat

Covap is an ambitious and innovative (agricul-tural products) cooper-ative in Spain looking at feeding animals by con-trolling forages to guar-antee the quality of the product. Alltech has developed a partnership with them and has seen improvements in the qual-ity of food they are selling and also efficiency.Technologies

“We see so many areas of the cow that should be monitored,” says Con-nolly. We should look at intake, body tempera-tures, fatness, locomotion, rumination and fertility. “Many technologies are coming out – ear ties that can measure body temper-ature, rumen probes that can detect what is going on directly in the rumen feed-ing real-time information; we’ve seen monitors like cow bells round the neck of the cow allowing you to detect changes in daily temperature and therefore predict when ovulation is occurring and be much more accurate in insemi-nation.

“That can feed into applications on the smart-phone, again making us smarter as farmers and that efficiency is extremely important because of the [feed efficiency] gap we have.” Connolly says we should start to imagine a world where we connect all these things together – genetic selections, feed efficiency, productivity and sustainability.

But, he asks, will we drown in that data? Cer-tainly the data will be too large to process by tradi-tional means. But technol-ogies are developing which can look at visually recog-nising the cow.

A smartphone can be held up inside a barn, survey 50 cows, identify the cows individually, and look for behaviour, loco-motion and health issues. It will identify such things as lameness, acidosis or body temperature.

PAM TIPA

STOCKFEEDSWith pasture in short supply and calving season looming, all eyes are on cow condition and having enough feed to get the herd through winter. In this special report we focus on how farmers can use stockfeeds to plug feed deficits and lift cow condition and milk production.

BOOKING DEADLINE: June 24AD MATERIAL DEADLINE: June 30PUBLISHED: July 7CONTACT: CHRIS DINGLE | T: 0417 735 001 E: [email protected]

NEXT ISSUE: JULY

SPECIAL REPORT


management // 19

BY emBRaCIng key changes in farming practices a Queensland dairying family has doubled milk production from the same land area in little over a decade.

The experience of David and Wendy Jones and their son Rodney is testament to the value of getting good advice.

The couple left Brisbane for their dairy enterprise Cedarlee on the banks of the Mary River outside Kenilworth in the Sunshine Coast hinterland in 1975.

Living with major floods has proved a challenge with their productive flats regularly inundated, forcing the herd to higher ground on the 120ha property.

By the early 2000s they were frustrated that milk production had hit a wall around 485,000 litres, Mr Jones said.

In 2002 they decided to engage a farm adviser, Shane Lambert.

“Changes we have implemented as a result have been brilliant. It was a real transformation,” Mr Jones said.

Annual production from their Jersey herd lifted to 685,000 litres and with an expansion to about 170 milkers they are now almost at a million litres.

Mr Jones said big improvements had come from better feeding and heifer management.

Open trough grain feeding in the dairy

was replaced with a computerised system and stall gates.

Variable feeding matches the needs of cows during their lactation with the custom ration able to be reduced as animals start to dry off.

The herd gets an average of about 6kg of grain-based ration a day and Mr Jones said the change based on two main feeding rates allowed much more efficient use of feed.

Improved pasture management has also played a big part and the feeding of up to 400 round bales of good quality hay. The hay helps maintain production during the seasonal feed gap in April and May.

Mr Jones said their pasture system had originally been based on cultivating for winter oats and lucerne.

They have now been farming their 22ha of productive river flats under a no-till system for more than 20 years with kikuyu providing the base feed during the summer months and Italian ryegrass for winter production.

An important change had been the replacement of their slasher with a 4.5m mulcher about 10 years ago.

The kikuyu is mulched down to allow direct drilling of ryegrass. If the kikuyu starts to get ahead of the rye, an autumn graze suppresses it before growth is checked by the onset of the first frosts. The kikuyu is then

dormant until October-November.

Mr Jones said with good management, the kikuyu provided summer grazing on a three week rotation.

“We treat it just like the ryegrass with regular fertilising and irrigation.”

The tri-blade mulcher used on the kikuyu about twice a year freshens top growth and also cuts the runners which take up nutrients, encouraging them to send up new

shoots.Mr Jones said it had

taken time to find the best ryegrass for their local conditions. They are now getting good results with the PPG Wrightson Seeds late maturing variety Nourish.

Their milk production had also benefited greatly from close attention to heifer management.

“We monitor our springers carefully and supplementary feed them right through to calving. It has made a huge difference,” Mr Jones said.

Heifers are better grown and routinely in the milking herd by two years old.

“With the heifers in better condition, we get higher production and more lactations and there are calving benefits too.”

They get good results from breeding their own young bulls to mate with the heifers.

Monitoring herd health is a priority with monthly vet checks and pregnancy testing.

who: David, Wendy and Rodney Jones where: Kenilworth whaT: Seeking fresh advice

goRdon CollIe

Adopting fresh advice boosts farm productivity

Their top cows are producing up to 7000 litres with the whole herd averaging about 5500 litres.

“We’ve had a lot of young stock with 50 to 60 heifers coming in each

year while we have been growing. But I think we are getting pretty close to our maximum carrying capacity now,” Mr Jones said.

A one hour change to milking times to 4am and 2pm had also produced benefits with more productive grazing in the early morning and late afternoon. Sprinklers are used to cool the herd in the yards during the heat of summer.

The family is pleased with a change of milk processor made in 2012 from Lion to Richmond

Dairy at Casino in northern NSW.

“Richmond have an excellent partnership with their farm suppliers and they are happy to take all the milk we can produce at one price,” Mr Jones said.

They are paid on butterfat and protein levels and average about 58 cents a litre which is close to cost of production.

“The price was a bit better about five years ago, but we really need a lift to a more realistic level now, just to keep up with rising production costs,” Mr Jones said.

Wendy, Rodney and David Jones on their Sunshine Coast farm.

Hay helps maintain production during the seasonal feed gap in April and May.


20 // MANAGEMENT

DAIRY FARMERS at Tooperang, SA (east of Mt Compass), are extending their plantings of irrigated chicory pasture and have refined seeding methods for denser, weed-free chic-ory stands.

To improve the effi-ciency of irrigated pas-ture production, the team at Clelands Dairy started switching from manual

long-lateral irrigation sys-tems to semi-automated centre pivot irrigators a couple of years ago and took the opportunity to also begin changing from irrigated ryegrass to chic-ory pastures.

Lee, Jill and Heath McKenzie and Scott Alksne began sowing chic-ory pastures in late 2013 and have since fine-tuned

reseeding procedures for denser, cleaner chicory stands.

“We have been much happier with our 2014 sowings because we better prepared the land for reseeding and ensured better weed control,” Mr Alksne said.

The new 2014 centre pivot areas were culti-vated prior to seeding to

Fine-tuning forage chicory production at Tooperang

remove residues and level the soil surface. However, Mr Alksne was aware that good seed-soil contact is critical when sowing chic-ory and knew that sowing into a well prepared seed-bed would result in denser, more even strikes.

“Sowing into a pre-pared seedbed also allowed us to use two other inputs to improve chicory strikes,” Mr Alksne said. “We applied agricultural lime and incorporated it with the soil cultivation so it would work quicker to correct soil pH.

“And we were also able to spray and harrow in tri-fluralin pre-emergent her-bicide a few days prior to sowing, to give really good control of wireweed and other summer broad-leaf weeds in the newly emerged chicory.”

Lee McKenzie is quite happy with results from the 2014 reseeding proce-dure. “We wanted to use chicory pastures under the new pivots because chic-ory grows better over the summer irrigation months than traditional ryegrass pasture” Lee said.

“Cows readily graze and produce off of chicory

in summer, but the extra growth is dependent on achieving dense, healthy chicory stands.”

Lee explained how pro-ductive summer irrigation is a key to securing lower cost forage supply to their herd throughout the year.

“Water is now as important a farm resource as land itself and we are striving to improve the efficiency of forage pro-duction per megalitre of irrigation,” he said.

“That’s why we are now working the Murray Dar-ling NRM Board to mon-itor soil moisture levels under our pivots, to hope-fully fine-tune our irriga-tion practices.”

DairySA forage project officer, Greg Mitchell, said chicory is a deep-rooted summer-active herb for vigorous, good quality growth under summer irri-gation.

“Chicory slows down and is less palatable over winter, but is often over-sown with annual Italian ryegrass to cover this gap,” he said.

“Irrigated stands are ideally sown in early-mid spring, ensuring good weed control before seed-ing.

“In particular, make sure perennial weeds like kikuyu and sorrel are properly controlled.

“Good seed-soil con-

tact essential.”Mr Mitchell said a high-

light of the Clelands Dairy work was that trifluralin herbicide can be sprayed and harrowed in prior to safely planting chicory, for good short-term con-trol of wireweed in newly emerged stands.

Other summer weeds controlled by trifluralin include pigweed (Portu-laca), caltrop and crab-grass.

The Clelands Dairy team reviewed their chic-ory establishment pro-gram after consulting with DairySA’s Hills & Fleurieu Forage Network project, supported by Dairy Aus-tralia.

The Clelands Dairy team review their new irrigated chicory pastures with local dairy farmers from the Mount Jagged Dairy Discussion Group.

WESTERN DAIRY has awarded a grant to University of Western Australia student Matthew Rowbottom for his research proposal investigating the effectiveness of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, in monitoring the growth of pasture biomass on dairy farms.

“Different ways of assessing pasture growth in the field already exist and the most common is visual judgement based on experience,” Mr Rowbottom said.

“The aim of my project is to develop a quick method of assessing pasture biomass and help improve the efficiency of grazing management.

“Drones offer the potential of creating a predictive visual precision tool that will inform farmers how much feed is on offer.

“Ultimately I hope my research project will show the benefits of drones as a non-invasive pasture management technique requiring minimal effort and extra learning from time-poor farmers.”

His project will be located at Rodwell farms near Boy-anup and the research is currently taking place and will finish in July.

Mr Rowbottom, who intends to make a career in dairy extension after university, demonstrated the use of drone technology at Western Dairy’s Dairy Innovation Day in April.

Using drones to monitor pasture growth

PO Box 7538 • Shepparton • 3632 Victoria Phone (03) 5831 5559 • Fax (03) 5822 [email protected] • www.wwsires.com

Dam: Jars Of Clay Valentino Bridget, EX 91


MANAGEMENT // 21

CRITICAL TIMES for feeding heifers are post weaning and when there is a shortage of quality pasture, so now’s a good time to check your heifer feeding plans.

It’s worth remembering well-grown heifers:

■ Get in calf quickly. ■ Produce more milk in their first

lactation and over their lifetime. ■ Get back in calf easily. ■ Stay in the herd longer. ■ Calve without difficulty. ■ Compete better with older

cows.Therefore, feeding heifers well is

an investment in the future of your herd and your business.

If you have heifers weighing 100kg at three months that you plan to calve as 2 year olds at 550kg, they need to grow at 0.7kg per day.

To achieve this growth rate you will need to feed high-quality sup-plements containing at least 11.5 MJ

ME per kilogram dry matter and 16% crude protein.

If the same heifers only achieve growth rates of 0.5kg per day on a lower quality diet and reach 450kg at calving, it can cost you 1700 litres in the vat over her lifetime.

It’s important to have a plan for your heifers and not forget about them.

If your weaned heifers suffer a growth check they will be able to make some catch-up growth in spring (and in summer if you sup-plement them).

However, catch-up growth is usu-ally fat and muscle – you may not be able to make up any check in frame size.

Depending on your situation there are several options for feed-ing your heifers:

■ Good quality pasture and good quality hay will support good growth rates.

■ If pasture and hay are in short supply, you could feed mini-mal fodder and provide supple-

ments in a trough. ■ Cereal grain is one option (you

may need to be fed up to 2kg per head per day) and whole oats are the cheapest and easiest grain to feed. Whole oats don’t need to be rolled before feed-ing and they are least likely of any cereal grain to cause grain poisoning (acidosis). However, they won’t provide enough pro-tein and you will probably have to feed out twice daily.

■ Concentrate blends based on palm kernel expeller (PKE) or almond hulls mixed with dried distillers grains and concen-trates are a cheap alternative that can be fed safely.If you are able to feed your heif-

ers well – do it. If not, make a plan and manage your risk.• Ashleigh Michael is a member of the Victorian Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources. This article was first pub-lished in the May edition of How Now Gippy Cow.

ASHLEIGH MICHAEL

Check heifer feeding plan now

MORE AND more Fleurieu dairy farmers are successfully oversowing pastures with ryegrass for extra winter feed. But drilling early and follow-up weed and pest control are the keys to success.

Echunga dairy farmers Kym Pocock and Peter Maddox oversowed many of their paddocks with ryegrass seed in autumn, aiming for extra winter pasture feed and to thicken up perennial ryegrass in several paddocks.

Mr Pocock explained how he was looking to completely renovate several paddocks because ryegrass pastures were a bit thin.

“These pastures were growing less feed and getting badly infested with annual weeds,” he said.

“But there was still a useful perennial ryegrass base in these paddocks and I wanted to avoid the costs and loss of winter feed associated with full renovations.”

They drilled several existing pastures with either annual Italian ryegrass or a mix of annual and perennial ryegrass seed. Oversowing work was deliberately carried out in the first week of April, allowing the new ryegrass seeds to germinate and compete on equal terms with existing pasture plants.

“In previous years, we have carried out any oversowing work early, so we get a good boost in winter feed, and it seems to have paid off well this year,” Mr Pocock said.

“We were fortunate to get good rains right through April and ryegrass seedlings established well amongst the existing pasture.”

By the end of April, capeweed and mallow germinations were competing against the ryegrass seedlings.

They boom-sprayed paddocks in early May with selective herbicides to control the weeds and remove competition.

They chose suitable herbicides after discussions with Greg Mitchell, a local agronomist.

They included an insecticide in the spray so the oversown ryegrasses were fully protected from insect pests and broadleaf weeds.

Mr Pocock and Mr Mitchell discussed the pasture program as part of DairySA’s new Hills & Fleurieu Forage Network project, supported by Dairy Australia.

Mr Mitchell said increasing numbers of Fleurieu dairy farmers are convinced of the benefits of going early if oversowing, drilling seeds into existing dry pasture

at the end of March or start of April.

“There is no compromise in early pasture growth and paddocks can still be used judiciously in the grazing rotation,” he said.

“Early sown ryegrasses and cereals germinate and initially compete with existing pasture plants, and grow well into winter, but it is critical that any broadleaf weeds will have to be controlled with selective herbicides by early May.

“There are suitable herbicides available to control capeweed, geranium, mallows and nettles.

“As with any reseeding work, insect pests like red-legged earth mite must be controlled as necessary with insecticides.

“Look out for earth mites, Lucerne flea, aphids, cockchafers, loopers and black beetles and act promptly if needed with insecticides.”

Mr Mitchell said many of those farmers who are oversowing early with annual forages are reserving any full perennial pasture reseeding work until August, when whole farm pasture supply is improving and they can afford to take out a few paddocks altogether for slow-to-establish perennial forages.

Looking after oversown ryegrasses Kym Pocock assessing weed

problems in one of his Echunga dairy paddocks dry-sown with ryegrasses at the start of April. Note a starter-irrigated perennial ryegrass pasture in the background.


22 // BREEDING MANAGEMENT

It’s Aussie Reds for the GreensMICHAEL GREEN is a big fan of Aussie Reds, preferring their milk pro-duction and quality per-formance, ease of calving, fertility and health traits over those of Holsteins.

Michael and his par-ents Ken and Shirley (orig-inally from Te Awamutu in the Waikato region of New Zealand’s North Island) run the Waikato Farm Aussie Reds stud on 290ha at Mt Schank, south of Mt Gambier. This is their sev-enth year with the Aussie Reds.

When the family moved from New Zealand in July 2001 and bought the farm and Holstein herd of 600 cows – walk in walk out – they found the cows had significant

fertility and calving prob-lems and their feet were too soft.

Their herd nutrition-ist suggested they look at the Scandinavian Reds for their health traits, so Michael went on a trip to Sweden to research the breed before starting to use them at the farm.

“In 2004 we started with 400 straws of Swed-ish red semen per year over the original herd,” he said.

In 2008 they bought the renowned Bosgowan Props stud herd of 300 Aussie Red cows from John and Monica Wil-liams at Meningie, with over 70 years of red genet-ics behind the herd. In the following year, the Greens

began noticing many improvements.

“Calving was heaps easier,” Mr Green said. “We don’t do night shift now. Cell counts are gen-erally better and the pro-tein deviation is higher.

“Aussie Reds are also very strong cattle. Their dark hooves are stronger and they are more struc-turally sound, with good longevity and a lot of will-power to live. They haven’t had their natural instincts bred out of them.”

The current herd of 690 cows is comprised of 344 Aussie Reds (including some two-way crosses), 80 Pro-cross sired Montbe-liardes and 267 LIC Frie-sians. The herd is milked in a 50-unit rotary, taking

three hours twice a day when all the cows are in. Calving is from end of August to the end of Octo-ber and February/March.

Their highest classi-fied Aussie Red cow in Australia, the 9-year-old Bosgowan Primula 451 EX 93 (awarded the high-est EX score of 93 within the breed), has (as at last herd test) produced 5759 litres in 122 days, with milk solids of 365.

Mr Green said one of his highest produc-ing Aussie reds (2998) did 14,021 litres in 305 days with 726kg/MS. Her daughter was classed as 88 at 2 years old (the highest possible for heifers) and EX 90 at three years.

Annual average pro-

duction figures for the Greens’ herd over the past 12 months are 8610 litres per cow and 617kg/MS over a lactation length of 323 days, based on herd test data from 534 cows.

These figures are better than the 2012–2013 herd recording national aver-age for the Australian Red breed, which was 6232 litres and 469kg/MS over a lactation length of 310 days (using figures from the Australian Dairy Herd Improvement Report 2013).

“One of the better sea-sons we have had in recent years averaged 640 cows with 9926 litres doing 692kg/MS per cow,” he said.

“Sometimes their lac-tation is longer. They just keep going because of the irrigation.”

The Greens milk on 160ha of irrigation, using ryegrass, white and red clover mixes. At peak times, the stocking rate is 4.4 cows per hectare.

“We only milk on dryland for a couple of months before locking it up for silage, so we mostly rely on irrigation,” Mr Green said. He adds that while they usually cut 440 (dry) tonnes of silage for feeding in autumn, this season was the first time they hadn’t cut any in spring (apart from some bale silage), due to dry conditions.

They have destocked slightly to help manage the season. “But this has been a very rough year to grow good quality grasses,” he said.

Cows are each fed around 2–2.5 tonne per

year (depending on pro-duction) of a dairy premix from Mepunga. The Greens have a Jantec feed system in the dairy, which uses herd test data to enable cows to be fed to production.

Mr Green said herd testing has been con-ducted for more than 10 years.

“Herd testing is com-pleted six times per year and helps us identify the good, the bad and the ugly, and problem cows for cell counts.

“Cows are culled as needed for cell counts, infertility, udders and problems with feet and legs. Older cows that are still producing well are kept.”

He said that with Aussie Reds having greater

Michael Green with some of his Aussie Reds at the family’s Waikato Farm Aussie Reds stud near Mt Gambier.

TO PAGE 23


MGGD: Markwell Goldwyn Mitzi-ET, VG 88FOR SERVICE AND ADVICE

YOU CAN TRUST1800 ABS BULL

www.absglobal.com/aus

Scan the QR code to view the ABS Australiawebsite

Fertility, Type and Production. . .Hill Valley NIELS-ET• ADHIS GBG #6 BPI sire• High Type• Outstanding cow family

Planet x SHOTTLE x Morty

(l-r) The Points Sholtz Silvia (photo Ross Easterbrook). -Dtr: Ladys-Manor Ruby D Sharm-ET GP-84. (Photo Kathy DeBruin)MGD: Uecker Jango Joyful-ET EX-90 (photo Beth Herges)*g

TPI i

s a

serv

icem

ark

of H

olst

ein

Asso

ciat

ion

USA,

Inc

St Clair SHOLTZ-Twin• Top 10 BPI sire @ 271 BPI• Extreme production sire• Lowers cell count• Improves rumps & teat length

29HO14961 RMW ARMITAGE• High, wide rear udders• Calving ease• Excellent health traits

29HO17553 Uecker Supersire JOSUPER-ET• Excellent fat & protein kgs• High milk with very good rear udders• Calving ease

SHOTTLE x DONOR x VALE Man-O-Man x Goldwyn x Oman Supersire x BEACON x Jango

Dam: Page House Shottle Noni EX-92. (photo Ross Easterbrook).

ABS0515_DNA148x220.indd 1 2/06/2015 12:12 pm


breeding management // 23

longevity, he has quite a few in the herd that are 10–12 years old and a couple of 14-year-olds. Both of the 14-year-olds have produced more than 100,000 litres in their life-time.

He finds that the reds are generally quiet by nature. “But they can be stubborn and have a mind of their own,” he adds. “They are also good aggressive feeders and tend to push to get in.

“It’s great being able to compare different breeds and crosses when you farm and feed them all exactly the same.

“The Pro-crosses

we milk are a three-way breeding option with the NZ LIC Friesian, Aussie Red and French Montbe-liarde in rotation. But they are also very strong cattle with good components.”

Michael spends a lot of time researching genet-ics and picking his own bulls. He does most of the breeding, AI and calf rear-ing, heifer rearing and staff management.

“My parents are not as keen on the Aussie Reds and still prefer the black and whites, as we still use LIC (NZ) Friesians,” he says.• This article was first pub-lished in the WCBF Supplier News.

a neW blog called the Dairy Fertility Investigator has been created to help dairy farmers keep on top of the latest developments in dairy fertility and herd management.

It has been launched by Victoria’s Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources (DEDJTR) and Dairy Australia.

The blog is the creation of DEDJTR dairy exten-sion officer, Ee Cheng Ooi, a young vet who is pas-sionate about dairy cow fertility.

DEDJTR dairy development specialist in animal performance, Sarah Chaplin, said Ms Ooi was writing this blog to help farmers keep on top of new developments in dairy reproduction, and to find out what other farmers are doing to improve their herd reproductive performance.

“This blog is a means of communicating new and relevant information directly to dairy farmers in a way that’s responsive, and can adapt to meet farmer requirements,” Dr Chaplin said.

“With so much infor-mation available it can be difficult for farmers to keep on top of new or

alternate ways of doing things, exciting techno-logical developments and the outcomes of recent research.”

Dairy Australia animal health and fertility program manager, Dr Kathryn Davis, said up- to-date information on new developments will help dairy farmers improve their skills and build more successful and profitable dairy businesses.

The Dairy Fertility Investigator features:

■ The latest research on dairy fertility issues.

■ ‘Featured farmers’ – stories of farmers doing reproduction right.

■ Industry news on breeding and fertility.Example articles and

information available at the site include:

■ How the latest research on subclinical ketosis is revealing its effects on fertility.

■ One farmer’s experi-ences with a five week weaning period – how to reduce your work-load in the calving season without sacrific-ing heifer growth and healthy calves.

■ Take home messages from the most recent conferences. The latest news about

Dairy Fertility Investigator a digital hub for farmers

Australian Dairy Herd Improvement Scheme (ADHIS) new breeding objectives and links to their YouTube clip. Dr Chaplin said the Inves-

tigator website has also been designed for farmers to provide feedback.

“We want to tap into the collective wisdom of dairy farmers everywhere.

We’d like to hear about farmers’ questions and issues and get their views on tackling real-life situ-ations.

“We aren’t seeking to

replace traditional exten-sion groups and networks, but want to push these further using the power of digital technology to connect farmers from all

around Australia.”Dr Chaplin is encour-

aging all dairy farmers to check out the Investiga-tor at: www.dairyfertility.com.au

from page 22

aussie reds


24 // animal health

DehORninG iS consid-ered a routine procedure for dairy calves.

The removal of horns in cattle improves animal welfare in the long term as there is a reduced risk of bruising and hide damage, especially during yarding and transport.

Dehorned cattle are safer to handle and they require less trough space when compared to horned cattle.

Dehorning also increases the value of the animal and leads to fewer aggressive behaviours within the herd.

The gene responsi-ble for ‘polled’ is actu-ally dominant and the gene responsible for ‘horn growth’ is recessive.

Basically this means that the dominant ‘polled’ gene can overrule the recessive ‘horn growth’ gene, resulting in the animal being polled.

In the beef industry, genetic selection of known polled animals or animals carrying the ‘polled’ gene has resulted in nearly half of the national beef herd

Removing the headache from dehorning calves

gemma chUck

being polled. However, transition-

ing to a polled herd is slow and can take several gen-erations for observable results.

Unfortunately, in the dairy industry the ‘horn growth’ gene is pre-dominant and this con-strains the opportunity for genetic selection for polled cattle.

Most dairy cattle have horns and currently there is no affordable test to detect the ‘polled’ gene in the dairy breeds.

Therefore the removal of horns in dairy breeds is likely to continue in the foreseeable future.

Calves are born with horn ‘buds’ and the cor-rect term for removal of these is ‘disbudding’. Dis-budding can be carried out using a heated disbudding iron.

At eight weeks of age the buds have grown suf-ficiently and have started to fuse with the underly-ing bone.

Removal of horns after 8 weeks of age is called ‘dehorning’. Due to the fusion of the horn tissue with the skull, horns can only be removed by ampu-tation after eight weeks of age.

This can be achieved using scoop dehorn-

ers of varying designs or embryotome wire for larger horns.

Thus, it is desirable to remove horn buds prior to 8 weeks of age as the pro-cedure is quicker and less painful.

Hot iron cautery has been shown to be the pre-ferred method of disbud-ding. However, regardless of method, there is an acute pain response fol-lowing the procedure which peaks at 30 min-utes and can last for eight hours.

Many studies have measured the effect of dehorning on calves and they have repeatedly

shown this pattern of pain and stress response.

As a result, the disbud-ding and dehorning of calves in this way is a wel-fare concern. Increased social awareness of the livestock industry could result in routine proce-dures, such as dehorning, being negatively per-ceived. In turn, this could impact consumer demand for dairy products.

Advances in veterinary medicine and pharmacol-ogy over the past decades have allowed drugs such as sedatives, local anaesthet-ics and analgesics (pain relief ) to become readily

A pen of calves resting and recovering after disbudding. The combination of a sedative, local anaesthetic and an anti-inflammatory minimises the pain and stress associated with the procedure.

To pAge 25


HSG Epic Paloma, VG 86Phone: 1300 838 700www.thevetgroup.com.au

Disbudding service

Reduce stress for you and your calves

Disbudding (dehorning) performed by veterinarians on calves 2 – 10 weeks of age using; sedation, local anaesthetic, pain relief topical antibiotic. Improved calf welfare, recovery and average daily gain. Keep up with the

latest stories fromby following us at

GET SOCIALWITH

DAIRYNEWS

DairyNewsAustralia

DairyNewsOz


ANIMAL HEALTH // 25

available for farm animals. Many of these drugs

have been used for years to treat sick or injured ani-mals and to enable sur-gical procedures to be carried out.

The routine use of these drugs for the pur-pose of dehorning dairy calves has been embraced in the UK, New Zealand, USA, Sweden, Canada and Denmark.

Regulation and legisla-tion varies internationally but there has been a gen-eral acceptance that per-forming disbudding and dehorning without local anaesthetic is unethical and unnecessary.

Studies have shown that the best way to reduce the pain and stress associ-ated with this procedure is using a combination of sedation, local anaesthe-sia to the area surround-ing the horn bud and pain relief at the time of the procedure.

Research has demon-strated that the stress/pain response in calves with this combination treat-ment at disbudding was virtually abolished com-pared to calves disbudded without the combination treatment.

Improved growth rates have been observed in heifers provided with pain relief at dehorning, com-pared to heifers that did not receive pain relief.

Further research is required to observe the long term effects of a painful event on production.

In Australia, the biggest obstacles in adopting this multimodal approach to disbudding and dehorning, are cost and availability of operators qualified to per-form this procedure.

Specific training on the use of sedatives and knowledge of the anatomy to perform local anaesthe-sia is required. Cost per calf will vary by region and operator.

These obstacles should not stand in the way of improved welfare for dairy calves. Ultimately con-sumer awareness puts pressure on the suppliers, who in turn can influence the dairy industry’s code of practice.

The dairy industry needs to be on the front foot in regard to rou-tin e procedures such as disbudding/dehorning, to ensure that negative public perception of these procedures does not arise.

This is 2015: how can putting a hot iron onto a calf ’s head without any anaesthesia be OK?• Dr Gemma Chuck is a dairy vet working at The Vet Group in south west Victo-ria. She has a special interest in calf rearing and is cur-rently undertaking her PhD in this area at The Univer-sity of Melbourne.

FROM PAGE 24

Removing the headache from dehorning calves

LARGER FARMS and their increased scale of production can impact welfare outcomes, according to Dr David Beggs, Animal Welfare Science Centre, University of Melbourne.

A national dairy farmer survey conducted by Dairy Australia in 2013 revealed the average Australian herd size has risen 37% over the past 10 years and this trend looks set to continue with 33% of farmers surveyed expecting to calve more cows in the following year.

“Increasing scale of production means larger herd sizes, increased stocking densities, longer milking

times, longer walking distances, and reduced ability to examine and treat cows individually,” Dr Beggs said.

“These factors have the potential to cause reduced welfare outcomes for dairy cows. But on the other hand, there are management aspects that often improve outcomes with economies of scale.

“Welfare can be difficult to measure and there’s been little published regarding the welfare outcomes for cows in large Australian dairy herds.

“Larger enterprises are more likely to have modern rotary dairies that reduce milking time.

“They may also be more likely to have infrastructure to electronically identify, monitor and feed individual cows, they maybe more likely to use professional advice and provide superior nutrition, and they may have greater capacity for staff training and general quality assurance systems.”

The University of Melbourne conducted a survey in 2014 to assess the relationships between herd size and known or proposed risk factors for adverse animal welfare outcomes in Australian dairy herds.

“We received responses from 863 (13%) Australian dairy farms

representing 260,000 cows with an average herd size of 304.

“What we found was that a larger herd size was associated with risk factors for animal welfare concerns in relation to decreased staffing per cow, increased grain feeding (which can lead to lameness and diseases) and increased milking time.

“There was no evidence, however, of an increase in disease or cow contentment levels.

“More than 95% of farmers believed that their cows were content most of the time.

“This can probably be explained

by larger enterprises having access to better training and education of staff, routine veterinary herd visits, separate milking of the main herd and the sick cows, transition diets before calving and written protocols for treatment of disease.

“Further research is needed however on the effects of increased time away from the paddock on cow welfare.”

The Pan Pacific Veterinary Conference is a collaboration between the Australian Veterinary Association and the New Zealand Veterinary Association. It was held in Brisbane late last month.

Spotlight on cow welfare on larger Australian farms

Calving time is one of the busiest times of the year. Calf scours can impact your business in so many ways today and tomorrow.• Extra stress, labour and cost in treatment and control• Fewer replacement heifers and adverse fertility outcomes • Lowered growth and production performance• Fewer eligible animals for live export

Vaccinate your herd prior to calving with ROTAVEC CORONA, the BROADEST SPECTRUM# calf scours vaccine containing Rotavirus, Coronavirus, E.coli and Clostridium perfringens (Types C and D).

TOLL FREE 1800 226 511www.coopersanimalhealth.com.au# Broadest spectrum refers to total number of antigen types in Rotavec Corona.® Registered trademark. AU/GUA/0115/0004

WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND AT CALVING TIME?

THINk CALf SCOURSTHINk ROTAVEC


26 // animal health

COWS Can dance for joy or stretch right out in deep, peaceful sleep because of the comfort of compost-bedding pack barns, says Maury Cox of the Kentucky Dairy Development Council.

Many barn systems in the US use a compost-type bedding, and in Kentucky they are busy trying to perfect their “compost bedded pack barn”, which particularly suits family-type operations.

Dairy News visited, with an Alltech Rebelation Symposium tour, the farm of Bill Mattingly, near Lexington, Kentucky, where a compost bedded pack barn was installed recently for their 200-cow family operation.

Their compost bedded pack barn is simply based on sawdust flooring which, when mixed with the effluent and managed well, including frequent turning, becomes a crumbly dry compost. The cows are comfortable on the compost which can eventually be used for fertiliser.

Cox says they started this about eight years ago in Kentucky when they realised they had plenty of sawdust for the barns. But the key is to manage it

well – and that means plenty of stirring. “You have to aerate it so it will make compost,” he says.

The Mattingly farm stirs it twice a day both ways when the cows come out. “You notice that if it starts to get a bit moist or wet and sticks to the cows, you need to add some bedding such as sawdust,” Cox explains. “We have seen that if it is managed correctly there is a lower instance of mastitis, and we have seen an increase in production…. We are seeing cows lasting longer, performing and being a lot more comfortable.”

The compost bedded pack barn methods have been the subject of university studies. They thought the heat produced by the compost would kill bacteria but that is not necessarily happening; there is still quite a lot of bacteria in the compost. “But if the cows are comfortable, well-kept and treated properly – cleaned during the prep time for milking, and post dipped – we see a lower incidence,

in most cases, of mastitis or somatic cell count levels.

“But if you get it too wet it’s going to blow up and be ugly. So managing it is very important.”

Huge fans keep the air circulating, and the barn also needs to be well

positioned for ventilation.

The compost is good underfoot for the cows. If it composts well, the bulk reduces. It may have to be changed every six months but he has seen some farmers with good systems carry on for two or three years “if it’s working right. But if it was not working completely right you

would have to bring it out once or perhaps twice a year. For most folks it’s once a year.”

Kentucky used to operate mainly on old stack barns. A layer of straw would be put down, then when it got “nasty” you’d put another layer down. The key with the compost barn is the stirring. To stir it they use a rotor-tiller or a special cultivator. It has prongs like a

regular cultivator and it gets down about 4-5cm. Sometimes the compost is so warm steam rises up as they stir it.

The system started in Minnesota but they find the Kentucky climate better suited. Israel also uses the technique with a lot more aeration and sometimes can go a year without adding bedding, says Cox.

A great thing about the compost bedded pack barn is it eliminates liquids so there’s no runoff, he says. You can clean it out quickly, use it as compost on your own farm and haul it

to a distant field quite easily.He says some farms get a big milk

production boost because the cows are so comfortable.

“On one farm they have never seen a cow go into such a deep sleep. A cow was lying there and they walked up to it and she was in a deep, deep sleep. She was laid out flat. We have also seen some of that.”

He recommends searching ‘cowsatplay’ on YouTube to see how much the cows enjoy the compost barns.

Cows content on compostPam tiPa

Maury Cox

Many barn systems in the US use a compost-type bedding.

LALLEMAND ANIMAL NUTRITION www.lallemandanimalnutrition.com.au

• Rumen maturation (calves)

• Increase rumen pH

• Increase fiber digestibility

• Optimize rumen function

1300 247 448 [email protected]

Give them the best possible startThe use of Levucell SC in starter and growing diets helps the rumen mature and optimize rumen function and therefore, is an effective tool for calf and heifer raising programs.

Watch fodder beet levels to avert cow sickness

HAY & SILAGEWhen it comes to Hay & Silage production, preparation and planning are as important as having the right gear.To help farmers prepare and maximise the conversion of grass into milk, therefore into dollars, Dairy News is putting together a Hay & Silage Special Report. This will run in the August issue of Dairy News, distributed free to all dairy farmers.

BOOKING DEADLINE: July 29AD MATERIAL DEADLINE: August 4PUBLISHED: August 11CONTACT: CHRIS DINGLE | T: 0417 735 001 E: [email protected]

NEXT ISSUE: AUGUST

SPECIAL REPORT

SCIENTISTS ARE urging farmers to take care when feeding fodder beet to their dairy herds this winter.

The caution comes as vets in New Zealand report increased issues with cows becoming ill or even dying as a result of problems experienced on fodder beet crops.

Beets have become increasingly popular in New Zealand over the past two years because they are high yielding and are suit-able as a supplement for dairy herds.

Despite being an excel-lent source of metabo-lisable energy, there is concern that some cows are getting too much of the high sugar crop in their daily feed intake or are not getting sufficient time to adapt to fodder beet as part of their winter diet.

DairyNZ nutri-tionist, Dr Jane Kay, said they have had reports of farmers offering cows unlim-ited access to fodder beet.

“Because of its high concentration of sugars, fodder beet is a feed that should not be offered in this way,” Dr Kay said.

DairyNZ senior scientist Dr Garry Waghorn said fodder beet’s high sugar compo-nent means that excessive intake of beets can lead to lactic acid production in the cow’s rumen, and cause acidosis.

The transitioning stage for fodder beet becoming part of the cows’ winter diet is critical to ensuring that cow health and the nutritional value of fodder beet are optimised.

Dr Waghorn and his associates at DairyNZ have run trials on the impact of fodder beet feeding.

They have found that even following the recommended transitioning over 14-21 days some cows could not cope with high levels (greater than 70%) of fodder beet in the diet.

“Cows vary in the rate at which they adapt to a new feed type and in the

amount they can eat. Move too quickly or feed them too much and you will kill some of them,” Dr Wag-horn said.

The DairyNZ trial work found that cows need to be transitioned carefully onto the crop over a 14-21 day period.

A typical transition would involve ramping up the fodder beet input by an additional 1kg DM/cow every second day, from a starting base of 2kgDM/cow/day.

DairyNZ trials transi-tioned cows at an aver-age of 0.5kgDM/cow/day, taking 17 days to get them up to their 8kgDM/cow/day allocation.

Dr Waghorn said it was critical to ensure that cows were also offered sufficient silage, hay or straw before feeding the

fodder beet, to slow down their intake of fodder beet.

Once transitioned it was also vital that farm-ers continue to pay atten-tion to the proportion of fodder beet in the diet.

“At one stage in our trials we had cows eating 85% fodder beet and 15% straw,” Dr Waghorn said.

“Half of these cows became sick, required treatment and had to be taken off the diet.”

This was in a con-trolled environment, and he emphasises the impor-tance of offering enough supplement to a herd to ensure all cows achieve adequate intakes to avoid acidosis.

“This trial work has shown that the herd should not be offered more than 70% of their diet as fodder beet. The

remainder of the diet should be a long fibre source, such as silage, hay, or straw, and the cows should be fed this before their beet.”

This is about 8kgDM/cow/day in beets, and 4-5kgDM/cow/day of the other feed(s).

“If you go over 70% fodder beet, you could kill some of your cows,” said Wag-horn.Good practice in managing a herd on fodder beet also requires that farmers accurately measure the crop yield.

This includes knowing the per-centage dry matter offered in each break,

and remembering that this can vary within and between paddocks.

It was important that the cows grazed a ‘mix’ of the roots and tops, and care was needed to ensure cows were eating the entire break offered, and uneaten beets were not accumulating behind them.

“Every cow is unique and will adapt to the fodder beet diet slightly differently,” Dr Waghorn said.

“Our trial showed that even a well-planned tran-sition can result in aci-dosis and if cows are fed more than 70% of their diet as beet, half the herd are at risk of acidosis.

“Full attention to the crop and the cow is required to manage this feed successfully.”


ANIMAL HEALTH // 27

“At one stage in our trials we had cows eating 85% fodder beet and 15% straw. Half of these cows became sick, required treatment and had to be taken off the diet.”

– Dr Waghorn

Vets in New Zealand have reported increased issues with cows becoming ill or even dying after eating fodder beat crops.


28 // CALF REARING

THE SUCCESSFUL rearing of calves is an area where your veterinarian should be one of the key members of your team, yet often we are called in, like the fire engine, to put out blazing problems when the losses reach some crit-ical (yet often entirely random) threshold.

Your veterinarian could have used his or her skills to help to prevent many of the calf rearing problems from occurring in the first place.

Calf rearing success requires a strategy and system that identifies areas where problems can occur, and how to prevent or treat those problems. I have written before, and will continue to do so, that a calf induction pro-tocol is very worthwhile,

especially on farms where multiple people may be responsible for that calf ’s care.

A good calf induc-tion protocol will include aspects of colostrum man-agement, umbilical care, timely removal from the mother and attachment of a permanent ID and also some record of the ease of calving etc.

Identifying the calf is critical for the integrity of the pedigree informa-tion, but also allows a calf health record to begin for the animal. A calf can have its colostrum volume, quality and time of feeding recorded so that a writ-ten record exists that con-firms that the colostrum feeding protocol was fol-lowed. In addition to this, if any quantitative test-ing (like blood protein or IgG levels) is being done to actually measure

whether the passive trans-fer of immunity has been successful, it can also be recorded on the calf health card.

Treatments or signs of illness can also be recorded for each calf in the pen which can help other workers to know whether there is any rele-vant health issues to mon-itor and also to maintain compliance with treat-ment plans and withhold-ing periods which will reduce the risk of antibi-otic or other residues.

Rearing healthy calves is about ensuring their basic needs are being met. It is essential after man-aging the transfer of anti-bodies to the calf via the colostrum, that the other critical requirements are also met.

Calf housing is a huge variable that can influ-ence the success or oth-

erwise of your calf rearing enterprise. Broadly gen-eralising, the aim should be to provide a warm, dry, draft-free environment, with sufficient bedding to maintain cleanliness and allow for normal behav-iours. Air quality issues must be addressed to pre-vent respiratory disease

But having good (or bad) facilities alone is not always the most signifi-cant factor. I have seen farms that have spectacu-larly good results in what I would consider quite poor facilities and others with good facilities that have poor calf rearing out-comes.

The critical difference is often the “care factor”. This includes things like hygiene, feeding consis-tency, feed quality, atten-tion to detail and early recognition of illness, making a thorough diag-

nosis and following up with the appropriate treat-ment or prevention strat-egy.

Some farms have losses that exceed 10% and yet if you asked them if they have a calf rearing problem they would probably say no. Keeping your calf rearing in perspective,

and monitoring the morbidity (sickness) and mortality (deaths) and benchmarking that against your previous results and those of other farms of similar size is a very useful exercise.

Developing proto-cols that ensure vaccina-tions are given at the right

time, weaning is done in a smooth and consis-tent manner and heifers are monitored to ensure that they are hitting all their targets are all things that your local dairy vet-erinarian can help you to develop to ensure the best results with your calf rear-ing.

Call your vet before problems occurROB BONANNO

ROTAVIRUS INFECTION is currently the most commonly diagnosed cause of calf scours in Australia. It is most commonly seen in the first two weeks of life, but can occur up to six weeks.

Calves pick the infection up from the faeces of infected calves or carrier cows that don’t show signs of an infection.

When a calf becomes infected, the absorbing layer of the intestine is damaged, reducing the amount of fluid the intestines can soak up while normal secretions of mucous into the intestine continue, leading to an imbalance or malabsorptive, often mucous diarrhoea.

Diarrhoea is often yellow and watery, sometimes frothy. This imbalance of too little absorption, and normal excretion, causes severe loss of fluid and electrolytes.

These imbalances can lead to low blood sugar, and cardiac failure in severe cases.

‘Secondary’ infections often occur on top of a rotavirus infection with cryptosporidia, and bacteria often occur during a rotavirus infection.

It is during secondary infections with Salmonella, Clostridium and Coccidia that high mortality rates are often seen.

The use of oral electrolyte solutions and the sensible use of antibiotics, both oral and injectable, form the mainstay of

treatment for rotavirus infections. Currently Scourban is off the market,

with no estimated time for its return in sight, according to the Lyppards veterinary supply wholesalers.

This is an annoyance to vets and farmers alike, but means that we should look harder at preventative measures.

As always, good hygiene and calf rearing protocols are essential in reducing infection rates, and these should not be put aside simply because calves are being treated with antibiotics. Ensure that your staff understand these concepts, as well as hand washing and the use of disinfectants.

Another method to reduce disease associated with rotavirus is to vaccinate cows prior to calving with a rotavirus

vaccine. This will trigger an immune response in the cow’s colostrum that will provide significant increases in the protective immunity the calf will receive from the colostrum.

The rotavirus survives better outside during warmer months compared to colder months as it is killed by cold conditions and hence rotavirus scours is often seen more in spring calves compared to autumn calves.

Producers with rotavirus disease in thei r replacement heifer calves may wish to plan a vaccination program leading up to spring calving.

Currently there are two options for farmers when selecting a vaccine to use:

• Rotavec is made by Coopers, and immunises against Rotavirus,

coronavirus, E.coli and Clostridium perfringens.

• Ultravac Scourshield is made by Zoetis, and immunises against Rotavirus, coronavirus, and E.coli

Of course, it is important to know for sure that Rotavirus is your problem before spending money on another vaccine.

Many vet clinics carry a calf scours snap test kit, which gives a result in 10minutes in the vet clinic.

Talking to your vet is advised to determine if, and when to vaccinate and which vaccine you should use.• Will Hume is part of the animal health team in the Victorian Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources, based in Leongatha.

WILL HUME

Rotavirus vaccination for spring calvers

Rearing healthy calves is about ensuring their basic needs are being met.

Turn your existing feed system into an ID-capable system with Advantage ID

➠ The latest product in the Feedomatic range

➠ Replaces your old feed motors with quality worm drive DC motors on each hopper

➠ Quickly and easily transform your old system into an ID system

➠ No disruption to your production as Advantage ID can be installed between milkings

Contact GRANT HUMBERT

0428 106 [email protected] www.feedomatic.com.au

Australia’s Smartest Automated Feeding Systems


CALF REARING // 29

THE LONG term future of a dairy heifer can be influenced by events in the first 24 hours of her life.

We can have a direct impact on these events and on her potential as a produc-tion animal. This article discusses the immediate care of the newborn dairy calf, identifies ‘at risk’ animals and how to manage them. THE ‘NORMAL’ CALF

It is important to recognise the behaviour of normal calves in the first few hours of life so that abnormal calves can be identified promptly. Normal calves should:

■ Take their first breath within 30 seconds of birth.

■ Lift their head within 1-2 minutes. ■ Roll onto their chest within 2 min-

utes. ■ Attempt to stand within 15 minutes. ■ Begin shivering within 30 minutes. ■ Be standing within 1 hour. ■ Be suckling within 2 hours of birth.

ROUTINE PROCEDURE FOR A ‘NORMAL’ CALF1. Position

If they haven’t already done so within a few min-utes of birth, all calves should be positioned onto their chest with their hind legs pulled forward on either side of their body. This position provides equal oppor-tunity for both lungs to fully inflate, allowing easier breathing for the newborn calf. The traditional method of hanging the calf upside or swinging the calf by its back legs is no longer recommended. It was originally thought that this prac-tice allowed fluid to be cleared from the lower airways (lungs). In fact, the drain-ing fluid observed is actually from the calf ’s stomach. Fluid in the lower air-ways will not be cleared this way and instead will be absorbed by the lungs. 2. Airway

Clearing mucous from the nos-trils and mouth will aid breathing. The head can also be positioned over a small bucket with the nose to the floor

to allow drainage of mucous from the upper airways (nose and mouth). 3. Stimulate

There are many ways to stimulate a calf in order to make it breathe more vig-orously. Pinching the nostrils, using a clean

piece of straw to tickle the nostrils, pouring cold water in to the ear, pinch-ing and shaking of the windpipe high up in the calf ’s neck to initiate a cough reflex and rubbing all over the calf ’s body with a clean towel are all useful ways to stimulate calves to breathe. The aim is to initiate deeper breaths as these will help clear any remaining fluid from the nose and mouth, which in turn will allow the lungs to be inflated more easily.4. Temperature

When calves are born their body temperature will be slightly higher than normal. At birth, their rectal tempera-

ture should measure 38.8-39.4oC. This will decrease within the first 30 min-utes of life to 38.3-38.8oC. In normal cir-cumstances they should then be able to maintain this body temperature. How-ever, calves born in cold weather con-ditions and a damp environment are at risk of hypothermia. Calf coats, heat lamps and hair dryers can be used to help maintain body temperature, along with a clean, sheltered environment. Absence of shivering is a poor sign and indicates that assistance is required. 5. Navel

The navel (or umbilical cord) seen at birth is comprised of the umbilical vein and the urachus. The umbilical arteries retract back into the abdomen and are not seen externally. The func-tion of these structures in the unborn foetus is to allow blood exchange between the dam and the foetus, and to remove waste products produced by the foetus. In the newborn calf these struc-tures become redundant and eventu-ally they degenerate. However, at birth the wet ‘open’ navel provides an entry

point for infection, allowing bacteria to enter the blood stream of the calf with sometimes fatal consequences. Heart disease, pneumonia, joint ill and men-ingitis are some of the consequences of bacteria gaining entry to the blood via the navel. Disinfection of the umbili-cal cord at birth helps reduce the inci-dence of these diseases. Iodine (7%) can be used as spray or in a teat dip cup. If using a teat dip cup, ensure the iodine is replaced frequently to avoid the dip becoming heavily contaminated with bacteria. Iodine-based teat dip generally contains 0.5% iodine and will be insuf-ficient for navel disinfection. Teat-dip also contains emollients which can pre-vent the cord from drying. 6. Colostrum

Detailed colostrum management deserves an article all of its own and will not be covered here. In brief, an adequate volume of good quality first-milking colostrum (>=22 Brix) should be provided as soon as possible after birth. For example, a 40kg new born calf

Immediate care of a newborn calf

COMMENTGEMMA CHUCK

TO PAGE 30

Dairy Equipment Co Ltd

EFFICIENT &AFFORDABLE

1300 767 [email protected]

Reduce teat spray usage! AND FOR THE

HERRINGBONE...Better than a manual teat sprayer and no labour unit. Two nozzles deliver highly accurate bursts of teat spray.

• Labour saving device

• Highly accurate

• Low teat spray usage

The original Teatwand 400 remains in the product range.

• Reliable and durable

• Optimal droplet size

• The better alternative

Distributor for:


30 // CALF REARING

should receive 4 litres of good quality colostrum within 12 hours of birth. This can be split into two feeds, with the first feed within two hours of birth. If only poor qual-ity colostrum is available, then a higher volume will be required to avoid failure of passive transfer of immunity. 7. Observe and Record

All calves should be checked for abnormalities at birth. These include congenital deformities and induced trauma (fractures of the legs or ribs). All calves should be given a unique identification at birth (Farm ID tag, NLIS tag) and calving details permanently recorded. Such details can include calf ID, date of birth, dam ID, gender, assisted birth, twins and sire (if applicable).RESUSCITATION

Calves requiring resuscitation are more likely to be delivered by farmers, not by vets. All farm staff should be trained in the resuscitation of newborn calves, using the appropriate equipment. Clean towels (ideally warmed), a hair dryer and a resuscitator are helpful items to have in the calving area.

Certain calves will be “at-risk” and are more likely to req uire resuscitation than others. These include calves with prolonged or difficult births due to disproportionate size, malpresentation, malpositioning or multiple births. Calves born by Caesarean section are also considered at increased risk. All of the ‘normal’ observed signs are likely to be delayed in these calves. For example, calves requiring an assisted birth may take 6-12 minutes to lift their head and roll onto their chest.

Attentive staff are critical to recognise these calves quickly. Signs indicative of a calf requiring resuscitation include swollen tongue or head, blue gums or tongue, slow, weak or absent breathing, flaccid body and poor suck reflex. Inactivity, hypothermia and lack of oxygen contribute to accumulation of waste products in the blood (acidosis), which further delays absorption of colostral antibodies in the gut of the calf.

Resuscitation begins with the routine for ‘normal’ calves described earlier. If positioning, clearing of the airways and stimulation are insufficient and the calf is not responding, then mechanical ventilation is required. This not only delivers oxygen to the calf but will also help reduce acidosis. Mouth-to-mouth ventilation is not rec-ommended due to the risk of transfer of potentially harm-ful bacteria. Instead, specifically designed resuscitators are recommended for this purpose. The mask is placed over the calf ’s nose while the head and neck of the calf is extended. It is important to close off the oesophagus on the left side of the calf ’s neck so that air is delivered into the lungs when the cylinder is depressed and not into the stomach. This technique is not as effective as placing a tube into the windpipe to deliver oxygen by cylinder. However, specific training and equipment are required for this procedure.

The main problems with calves post-delivery are inac-tivity, low blood oxygen, accumulation of blood waste products (acidosis), hypothermia, low blood sugar (hypo-glycaemia) and poor colostral transfer of immunity. Treat-ment is targeted at the specific problem:

■ Position the calf correctly ■ Clear the airways and assist with mechanical ventila-

tion where necessary ■ Stimulate and encourage movement ■ Provide a warm environment ■ Routinely disinfect the navel ■ Feed warm colostrum by teat or oesophageal tube ■ Record all calf details

Collectively these actions will increase the chances of a positive outcome. • Dr Gemma Chuck is a dairy vet working at The Vet Group in south west Victoria. She has a special interest in calf rear-ing and is currently undertaking her PhD in this area at The University of Melbourne.

Immediate care of the newborn calf

FROM PAGE 29

It is important to recognise the behaviour of normal calves in the fi rst few hours of life so that abnormal calves can be identifi ed promptly.

ESSENTIAL 23% Protein 20% Fat Multi Species Quality Ingredients Easy to Mix Amino Acids Vitamins & Minerals

PREMIUM 26% Protein 21% Fat Quality Ingredients Curding Easy to Mix Amino Acids Bovatec®

Blended Acids Betaine Host Specific

Probiotic Vitamins & Minerals

ULTIMATE 28% Protein 22% Fat Highest Quality

Ingredients Excellent Curd Easy to Mix Amino Acids Bovatec®

Blended Acids Betaine Host Specific

Probiotic Vitamins & Minerals

For more information

1800 MAX CARE (1800 629 2273)[email protected]

The new benchmark in Calf Milk Replacers


MACHINERY & PRODUCTS // 31

Cut and catch – that’s a wrap

WHO: Mark and Luke McCarthy WHERE: Alvie via Colac WHAT: Bale cutter and fi lm catcher

A ROUND bale handler with a film or net-wrap cutter has made the job of filling the feed mixer a lot easier on a dairy just north-west of Colac in Victoria’s western dis-trict.

Mark McCarthy runs the dairy at Alvie with his younger brother Luke, currently milking about 430 cows on a 50 stand rotary that was put in 2½ years ago. Mark said that Luke does about 80% of the year-round milking. Their parents, Shane and Ann, moved onto the dairy here 33 years ago when it was on 24ha with 35 cows on a walk-through shed.

The farm now covers 182ha, plus some leased land. Mark grew up on the place, spent six years working at the Greg Allan Farm Machinery dealer-ship in Colac, spent some time overseas and work-ing in the mines and has been back on the farm for 2½ years.

They make a couple of

thousand round bales of ryegrass silage each year, plus some straw bales. Last year it was 2000 silage bales and 1000 straw bales.

At the Sungold Field Days last year the brothers decided that a bale grab, cutter and film catcher would make the job a lot easier for feeding bales into their Kuhn feed mixer.

Mark said that they didn’t bother shopping around for the machine. “We’ve always dealt with Tim Foster at Greg Allan’s. He told us about the Cashels machine, so we looked at it on the internet and Tim showed us some

videos so we decided to go ahead with it”.

Cashels are based in County Mayo, in the west of Ireland, and manufac-ture a large range of front loader and linkage attach-ments for bale and pit silage handling. Greg Allan imports and distributes the machines in Austra-lia through a subsidiary, Colac Ag Importers.

The Cashels bale cutter and film catcher is designed to increase productivity in handling round bale silage to live-stock when mounted on

a front end loader. They claim that the unique shape of the machine ensures that it performs well, cutting the bale in half and catching the net or film every time, regardless of the bale shape or density.

Mark is the main oper-ator of the bale handler. “I like the simplicity of using the machine, it complements our mixer wagon, we’ve been using mixer wagons for about 20 years, and KUHN wagons for the last four.

“The quick cutting of the film works well; we just drop the film into old spud bins. We currently handle four round bales a day, and we have a fair bit of travel distance as we are doing it. It is only straw bales at the moment, and the bale cutter handles the net wrap very well.”

One double-act-ing hydraulic valve con-trols both the bale cutter and the film or net wrap catcher. Heavy cylinders fitted to the machine are designed to pro-duce enough force to cut through even frozen bales that are experienced in the native Irish condi-tions.

The Cashels bale cutter is 1800mm wide and will handle round bales up to 1350mm in diameter and with a maximum weight of 1200kg.

Cashels’ instructions are that operators drop the unit over the bale and when the bale film is vis-ible through two cut-outs at the rear of the frame, to close the blade sec-

tion. This sends a signal to a sequencing valve to engage the film catcher.

The operator then raises up the unit and pro-ceeds to cut the bale in half, dropping the first half into the feed mixer or feed pad. Then as the blade sec-tion is raised the second half of the bale drops out.

At this point the bale film and net are still attached to the unit. The

blade section is raised to the fully open position to disengage the film catcher and drop the film or net wherever it is suitable. As Mark McCarthy says, it is a very straightforward and simple operation.

The McCarthys oper-ate the bale handler with a 104hp Valtra 6550 tractor and have another one on the farm for other work, as well as a Vicon baler and a

Vicon bale wrapper.Mark said they grow all

their own ryegrass silage and went to pit silage for the early silage. “It’s very economical putting it through the mixer wagon.”

He is reasonably confi-dent about the future for dairying for them. “The biggest positive at present is the competition in Aus-tralia, which is providing good milk prices for us.”

WORKING CLOTHESCHRIS DINGLE

Tim Foster from Greg Allan Farm Machinery inspects the Cashels bale slicer on Mark McCarthy’s Alvie farm.

The new Cashels bale cutter and fi lm catcher.

Mark McCarthy (left) talks to Tim Foster of Greg Allan Farm Machinery.

FOR MORE INFORMATION PHONE TOLL FREE: 1800 45 95 75 www.mahindra.com.au

MAHINDRA,BUILT TOUGH!MAHINDRA,

BUILT TOUGH!

JAPANQUALITYMEDAL

WINNER

Competitive FinancePackages Available

$5000Factory Rebate‡

‡8000/9500 4WD Series

MAHINDRA8000/95004WD Series

• Fully Mechanical, No Electronics• 3 Year/2000 hour Engine & Powertrain Warranty• Best dollar per horsepower & tractor weight on the market

#Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd is the No.1 Tractor company in the world by volume. Photographs may show overseas models or illustrate non-standard equipment. Please read your Mahindra operators manual carefully prior to operation. ‡ Tractor & Loader must be a con�rmed order with an authorised Mahindra Dealer by 31 August 2015 to take advantage of this o�er. ^3 year/2000 hour engine & powertrain warranty whichever occurs �rst. See your dealer for details. *Pricing valid until 31 August 2015 or while stocks last. All prices are GST inclusive. DMM3562.


32 // MACHINERY & PRODUCTS

A new workforce for the worldMASSEY FERGUSON says it has taken the concept of a utility tractor and re-engineered it from the ground up to meet the needs of present and future

farming. On offer in the power

bracket is an array of build specifications, options and accessories encapsulated in the MF 4700 Global Series.

“These state-of-the-art tractors are the result of a $350 million investment in a completely new, clean-sheet design,” says Simon Hole, marketing director,

AGCO Australia/New Zealand.

“Unlike the majority of other tractors in the sector, the Massey Ferguson Global Series has been designed and

ENGINE POWERMF4700 Series features:

❱❱ MF4707, 74hp AGCO Power 3.3L, 3-cylinder turbocharged engine

❱❱ MF4708, 82hp AGCO Power 4.4L, 4-cylinder turbocharged, Tier 2 mechanical fuel injected engine.

MF4700, a utility tractor revamped for modern applications.

built in the 21st century, purpose-built for modern applications. They retain our traditional straightforward operation, dependability and value for money.

“In addition where possible we use existing design technology and components which allow us to provide local parts and service most efficiently across our whole range of tractors, wherever they are in the world.”

At least 90% of the parts and components in the Global Series are entirely new, though combined laboratory and field testing for 36,000 hours saw prototypes tested in brutal conditions in Arizona, USA and Lusaka, Zambia.

Engineers at MF’s Beauvais plant in France developed a new transmission with synchronised mechanical reverse shuttle for the MF4700 tractors. A constant mesh, straight-cut gear design with a large contact area means the transmission should prove easy to service in tougher parts of the world. Essential (semi-platform) models offer power shuttles activated by a lever on the dash, while standard (footstep) units have synchro-shuttle to the driver’s left side

A 12 forward/reverse speed gearbox is controlled by two straightforward levers

mounted on either side of the driver’s seat; one lever shifts the gears, the other selects high or low range. An independent 540rpm system is fitted for the PTO.

The rear axle has inboard reduction units and oil-immersed brakes; the front axle is offered in 2 or 4WD configuration, both with hydrostatic steering.

The 4WD version has a guarded driveshaft layout under the centre of the tractor, with a spring-on/hydraulic-off control system that ensures the 4WD is engaged when the engine is turned off.

An open-centre high pressure hydraulic system uses a tandem pump to supply the pressure and flow required to control and power implements; electronically controlled maximum lift capacity is 3000kg.

The tandem pump is mounted to the right side of the rear housing, with much of the system built into the cover plate and offers good access for routine maintenance or service.

The MF4700 Series models are available with comfortable, footstep or semi-platform operator environments with logical, easy to use controls. A fully approved ROPS frame and optional sun canopy are fitted. www.masseyferguson.com.au

www.lely.com.au innovators in agricultureinnovators in agriculture

...WITH A LELY ASTRONAUT A4 ROBOTIC MILKING SYSTEMLike all our dairy solutions, the Lely Astronaut A4 milking robot has been developed from the starting point: the cow.

The robot guarantees the highest achievable milk quality while its unique management tools ensure you have full control over your herd.

...OR A LELY JUNO FEED PUSHERThe Lely Juno pushes the feed 10 to 12 times a day, reducing your time and money spent significantly.

Call Lely Australia today on 1300 946 306 to see how you can get more out of your farm.

Maximise your productivity

FIVE NEW, 3- and 4-cylinder MF 5600 series models from Massey Ferguson are purpose built to deliver exactly the right specification for the 85-120hp sector.

The new MF 5600 series are built ‘loader ready’: models come with a factory-fitted sub-frame and a wide range of novel features and controls to ease and enhance operation.

Available in three power sizes (85-100hp), the 3-cylinder 5600 models are pow-ered by AGCO Power engines and are based on the current 2.4m wheel-base chassis. Available with the maker’s Essen-tial specification cabs, these models all have the simple, reliable Dyna-4 16x16 transmission.

The larger 110hp and 120hp models again use AGCO Power engines,

but in a 4-cylinder config-uration with a new larger 2.55m chassis. These two models are available in Essential cab speci-fication with a Dyna-4 transmission, while the Efficient specification upgrade comes with the Dyna-6 24x24 transmis-sion. Both the Essen-tial and Efficient models have the completely

new front axle suspen-sion option designed and manufactured by Massey Ferguson.

With maximum (ISO) power of 85, 95, 105, 110 and 120hp, the MF 5600 series offers a choice to meet all customers’ spe-cific requirements in this important market sector which appears to be expanding rapidly.

THE FOURTH genera-tion of the Valtra T Series offers models with 155-250hp and up to 1000Nm torque, a large amount of power to take on demand-ing tasks.

They are available with two transmission variants – Versu and Direct.

The Versu models have the maker’s AutoTrac-tion automatic clutch function for its power-shift transmission, which allows shifts automati-cally by monitoring travel speeds, unlike competi-tor systems that look at engine speed. Additional features such as hill-hold and hydraulic assistant aid the driver with transport and frontloader operation.

The Powershift operates with five steps in four gear ranges, plus 10 speeds in the creeper ranges, giving a total of 30 forward and 30 reverse speeds.

The Direct transmis-sion, built in-house by Valtra, offers three driv-ing modes. The default is pedal mode (automatic): the driver sets the target speed with the drive pedal. In lever mode (automatic) the driver sets the target speed by the drive lever. In manual mode the driver can set separately the engine revs and manage the driving speed indepen-dently with the drive lever.

T Series models are powered by 6.6L or 7.4L AGCO Power engines.

Exhaust emissions are minimised by a Tier 4 Final SCR system. The SCR system and opti-mised turbo and engine package results in excel-lent fuel efficiency and eliminates the need for an exhaust gas recirculation system or diesel particu-late filter.

The T174 model comes standard with Valtra’s EcoPower feature. When the driver presses the eco button the nominal engine speed drops to 1800rpm while torque increases. This reduces fuel con-sumption by about 10%, lowers the noise level and extends engine life. In addition, the Sigma Power feature, standard on all

models, increases engine output by 15hp when the PTO is under sufficient load. The transport boost function in turn raises an extra 15hp in the C and D ranges.

The most striking fea-ture of the fourth gener-ation T Series is its new cab – stylish, spacious and quiet. Pillars that curve outwards maximise inte-rior space for the driver and keep the external

dimensions compact. The cab is now 20cm wider by the driver’s seat than the previous generation, for plenty of room.

Electrically heated front and rear screens, a front windscreen wiper sweeping 270 degrees, fac-tory-fitted parking cam-eras, LED working and rear lights, and six square metres of glass combine to offer unsurpassed vis-ibility if optioned. Also,

the optional roof window helps when operating a frontloader.

Other features include stereo with subwoofer, cool box, TwinTrac

reverse-drive system that can be adjusted laterally and a factory-fitted, fuel-powered, phone-operated auxiliary heater. www.valtra.com.au


MACHINERY & PRODUCTS // 33

Five new MF tractors are loader ready

MARK DANIEL

The MF 561 unloading hay bales.

New generation designed for the operator

A new stylish cab (below left) is the most striking feature of the new Valtra T series.

ISEKI HAS bolstered its line of compact tractors with its new TG6000 Series. Three new models (36-47hp) will “suit anyone looking for a handy all-rounder to tackle tasks on farms or in grounds-care applications,” the company says.

The new series is powered by Iseki 3- and 4-cyl water-cooled engines that develop more power and torque at low revs, but are also Tier 4 compliant for cleaner exhaust emissions.

For added ease and flexibility, a choice of hydrostatic or power-

shuttle transmissions is available. The three-range hydrostatic transmission and the 12 x 12 speed power-shuttle transmission “provide effortless direction changes and a greater speed range”.

Automotive-style cruise control is also a standard, giving greater comfort and control.

Heavy-duty axles, with 4WD as standard, make the new series an ideal frontloader tractor, the maker says. Pre-plumbed hydraulic valves allow easy attachment of the loader, and open-centre hydraulics with oil

flow up to 49L/min allows “lifting more and working faster”.

A reinforced chassis and a linkage lift capacity of up to 1580kg makes for versatility and easy attachment of implements.

The operator platform is flat and uncluttered.

The 38-47hp models can have an optional air-conditioned cab. The deluxe cab has dual side entry, “outstanding” visibility with 360 degree views and temperature control.www.iseki.com.au

New addition bolsters compact tractor range

Iseki has improved its compact tractor range.

Our columnist wants to buy a Chamberlain, much like this 4080.


34 // MACHINERY & PRODUCTS

Coveting thy neighbour’s ChamberlainFOR THOSE of you who may have unkindly thought it, last month’s ‘compact tractor’ column was not a cry for help. In some ways however, this month’s piece is.

For I am struggling with temptation – best I explain: On the side of the highway near where I live, there sits an old Cham-berlain tractor with a ‘For sale’ sign propped up against it.

A 4080B, or a 4280B, I’m not sure (it’s hard to tell at 100km/h). I don’t know how much the owner is asking, nor do I know anything at all about the machine, other than that it has a three point linkage, unlike many Chamberlains out there.

The three point link-age is only tangentially relevant, because the fact is, I have no need for this machine.

My hobby farming empire has not yet, and most likely won’t, expand to the point of needing two 80-plus horsepower tractors.

I have enough trou-ble getting the tractor I

have into the shed most of the time, and no repair facilities for dealing with another, increasingly vin-tage, machine.

However, the tempta-tion persists.

I’ve always been fas-cinated by Chamberlain, partly because of their Australian heritage (built in an old munitions fac-tory at Welshpool, West-ern Australia), partly because they are always so cheap second-hand.

Yes, of course I sort online search results by price. Are they cheap because they were rubbish tractors, or because they are now orphans (Cham-berlain having been sub-sumed by John Deere long ago)?

One thing’s for sure: there are a lot of them out there.

I’ve spoken to a few owners over the years, most of whom are pretty happy with the machines as a basic and reliable, if now outdated, tractor.

Parts availability seems to vary, with basic pieces available nearly anywhere, but anything important requiring a network of wreckers’ yards to source.

One of the many dealer advertisements I’ve read, described the engine as a ‘sweet-running six cylin-der that loves to rev’.

Sounds like utter tripe, but the robust John Deere motors do seem to be a notable strength in the later Chamberlains.

So, apparently, does a high road speed, anec-dotally allowing some machines to be used as implement ferry vehicles by contractors.

Given your columnist has previously marvelled at the ingenuity of high speed tractors, it is only right to make mention of ‘Tail End Charlie’, the spe-cially modified Chamber-lain Champion model that entered the Redex rally around Australia in 1955 – geared up to a top speed of 110km/h.

So on one hand, there are the practical ques-tions of cost, application, storage and maintenance.

On the other, the oppor-tunity to own a piece of Australian history for which there really should be an owners’ club, if one doesn’t already exist.

Tough one…• John Droppert has no mechanical qualifications whatsoever, but has been passionate about tractors since before he could talk and has operated many different makes and models in a vari-ety of roles for both profit and fun.

GRUNTJOHN DROPPERT

JANTEC ELECTRONIC HERD IDENTIFICATION

PREMIUM QUALITY MILKCellSense is the answer.

Automatically identify cows with high cell count.(03) 5222 8891www.jantecsystems.com.au

TOW AND FARMby metalform

TF

The Tow and Fert allows you to dissolve your own urea to reduce your

enabling you to apply multiple fertilisers or animal health products or herbicides in one application. Talk to us about the cost reduction you can achieve right now.

REDUCE YOUR FERTILISER BILL AND GROW MORE GRASS

THE CHEAPESTPASTURE

WITH TOW AND FERT.

FORM OF FEED.

Multi 4000ulti1200 Multi 1000

t edu

Multi 1000ulti1200 Multi 4000

M

Call us for your FREE demo now:WWW.TOWANDFARM.COM.AU

1300 630 279

*APVMA Approval No: 58509, 47545/0802, 68319/58101, 68079/57440, 47746/0902, 45899/0802 and 67863/56998.

hard-working, proven teat protection

range includes:

iodine, chlorhexidine, ddBSa

Protect your hard-working cows with the proven protection of Ready to Use Theraspray Gold, Theraspray Gold, theraspray 5 ready to Use, theraspray 20, Theraspray Red, Blu-Gard Concentrate and gSe Udder emollient teat care solutions.

we work harder so you can work smarter.

www.ecolaB.com

dairy news australia june 2015

Documents