Data sharing initiative wins national award for saving farmers time
The work Fonterra has done with Ballance Agri-Nutrients Ltd, LIC and Ravensdown to save farmers time through better data connections has been recognised with a national award.
Thirty three of the nation's top dairy farmers will be heading to Wellington to vie for the three top titles.
The titles are New Zealand's Share Farmer of the Year, Dairy Manager of the Year and Dairy Trainee of the Year for 2016.
With the prestigious New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards in its 10th year, Greg Campbell, Ravensdown chief executive, says the awards play a vital role to boost the industry's spirits.
"The awards shine a light on the positives of the industry and showcase some of the outstanding leaders within. With the industry facing some extremely tough times they provide a welcome opportunity to celebrate the good things," he says..
The Share Farmer and Dairy Manager finalists collectively represent over 4200 hectares of the 1.8 million hectares of land used by New Zealand's dairy farmers, and they farm over 11,600 of New Zealand's five million dairy cattle.
"These finalists are the elite of the elite. There are only 33 who made the finals out of the 542 who entered and they deserve a huge congratulations from us all. Not only for making it this far but for entering in a year where it would probably have been easier to put your head down and just try and survive," says Campbell.
Campbell went on to say part of the benefits of the awards is the learning opportunities for entrants both from each other, the judges, previous entrants, as well as sponsors.
"We are proud to sponsor the awards and our agri managers love talking pasture with entrants. We're particularly thrilled to see four of the 11 Ravensdown Pasture Performance winners going through to the finals who will have a good chance of taking out the $2000 prize."
Pasture plays a big part in New Zealand's dairy farm system, something Campbell says is becoming an exact science.
"It's one of our points of difference, we're always looking to make pasture growth as precise as we can, be it with our pasture measuring technology through C-Dax, our Smart Maps system or our soil testing laboratory ARL."
The NZ Dairy Awards take place Saturday at the TSB Bank Arena in Wellington.
In an ever-changing world, things never stay completely the same. Tropical jungles can turn into concrete ones criss-crossed by motorways, or shining cities collapse into ghost towns.
Labour's agriculture spokesperson Jo Luxton says while New Zealand needs more housing, sacrificing our best farmland to get there is not the answer.
Profitability issues facing arable farmers are the same across the world, says New Zealand's special agricultural trade envoy Hamish Marr.
Over 85% of Fonterra farmer suppliers will be eligible for customer funding up to $1,500 for solutions designed to drive on-farm efficiency gains and reduce emissions intensity.
Tighter beef and lamb production globally have worked to the advantage of NZ, according to the Meat Industry Association (MIA).
Managing director of Woolover Ltd, David Brown, has put a lot of effort into verifying what seems intuitive, that keeping newborn stock's core temperature stable pays dividends by helping them realise their full genetic potential.
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