Rewarding farmers who embrace sustainability
Winners of DairyNZ’s Sustainability and Stewardship awards in the Ballance Farm Environment Awards have their eyes firmly fixed on progressing a positive future for New Zealand dairy.
Mackle says this will lessen the impact in the overall drop in milk production for the season.
“Recognising some farmers have been particularly badly hit, in general I am still staggered that most farmers are coping well with all the issues they have been facing. Even when milk prices return to more normal or average levels, farmers will still need to run a tight ship, using pasture well and keeping a close eye on their costs,” he says.
While other dairy farmers worldwide have been hit by the global dairy crisis, Mackle says NZ farmers have suffered the most: they were the first hit by the crisis. The others, especially in Europe, were somewhat buffered by their strong domestic markets and EU subsidies.
But Mackle is concerned that as well as having to farm in difficult times and situations, NZ dairy farmers are constantly hit by negative publicity. This referse to recent video showing a handful of dairy farmers flaunting best-practice procedures in their ill-treatment of calves.
“There is no getting away from it; having grenades lobbed at them like this and [the public] questioning standard practices and values is upsetting for farmers. My advice is, they shouldn’t let it get to them because they know in their hearts that the vast majority are doing the right thing,” he says.
Mackle says this latest publicity highlights the need for the industry to explain to the wider public what are good, standard onfarm practices.
