New Zealand and Ireland Extend $34.5m Climate Research Partnership for Agriculture
Ireland and NZ have concluded a deal to extend a joint research programme on climate change.
A major Irish supplier of milk collection and metering systems has Transport Hydraulic Systems (THS) as its New Zealand distributor.
Piper Systems Ltd, Co.Wicklow, Ireland, has made these products for 20 years; THS is established in the supply and servicing of the hydraulic pumps used in all NZ dairy tankers.
“We already have a Certificate of Approval from the Ministry of Consumer Affairs under the weights and measures regulations and are now doing feasibility trials with one of NZ’s bigger dairy companies,” says Piper Systems chief executive, Archie Hamilton.
Piper is well established in Ireland with Lakeland Dairies, one of Ireland’s biggest dairy companies. Its fleet of 60+ tankers uses Piper’s pumping and recording equipment. Lakeland has 2200 family farmer suppliers and in 2014 year had turnover of €625.8 million ($NZ1 billion).
Piper has 120 units with six different dairy companies in Ireland, 220 in the UK and 120 with two transport companies collecting milk in Australia. Their gear is also gaining acceptance in the US.
The use of Piper’s measurement guarantees the accuracy of volume reading and the samples are 100% representative of the milk collected. Piper samplers can also collect two identical samples if one is required by the farmer.
With the Piper milk assembly portal, farm collection data is automatically transferred to secure dedicated cloud servers where live and historical data is available. Benefits include automatic transfer of collection and delivery information. There is no internal IT hardware or support required, it allows effective load planning and better route planning and mapping and reduces support costs.
“Another important point about the units is their light weight which helps lower fuel costs,” said THS managing director Brenden Lyons.
He reports also that the units cause less product damage.
Oamaru-based livestock handling specialist Te Pari has bought Combi Clamp, the New Zealand manufacturer of Combi Clamp manual sheep handlers.
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has admitted that a scheme bringing workers from Pacific nations to work on orchards has become too hard to navigate but says changes are coming.
A new app designed in New Zealand aims to help sheep, beef and deer farmers capture, analyse and use body condition score data more effectively.
Canterbury farmer Andy Macfarlane has been appointed to the board of AgriZeroNZ, the public-private partnership designed to accelerate the development and deployment of emissions reduction tools for New Zealand farmers.
For over 50 years Mel Ewers has been supporting the apple sector navigate through compliance and quality assurance issues.
The apple sector is enjoying a bumper harvest season.
OPINION: City and regional councils have been put on notice - stop using extreme climate forecasting scenarios that can drive…
OPINION: The Green Party’s rivers and oceans policy may have a new name but nothing else has changed.