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.
The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners (the College) and Hauora Taiwhenua Rural Health Network are calling for investment in a proposed new training pathway for rural GPs, warning that many rural practices are struggling to recruit while a large share of the existing workforce nears retirement.
Federated Farmers has called on Central Otago District Council (CODC) to drop or vote down a plan to truck sludge from Alexandra and Cromwell to farmland near Lauder, warning it would compound an "outrageous" situation created by a separate council's decision weeks earlier.
Synlait has swung to second-half profit as operations stabilise, but the dairy processor still posted a $75.4m annual loss.
LIC shareholders have elected a new North Island representative to the co-operative's Board, along with five representatives to its Shareholder Reference Group (SRG), following the company's Annual Meeting held in Invercargill.
Farmers across parts of Southland and South Otago are continuing to deal with difficult conditions after a prolonged run of wet weather, with pressure building around feed supply, stock management, pasture damage, farm infrastructure and everyday workloads.
Federated Farmers says it welcomes Labour's commitment to reviewing the Sharemilking Agreements Act, calling on other major parties to do the same.