increase font size
Sarah Speight says calving rates in terms of numbers have been good.
The mood among farmers is cautiously optimistic this season according to DairyNZ’s new general manager farm performance.
Sarah Speight took over the role in July this year, having worked in the agricultural sector for over 25 years.
Speight, a farmer herself, says it has been an interesting winter for those in the paddocks.
With a drought that lasted through to autumn, followed by the current wet weather, compounded with cost increases and labour shortages, Speight says farmers have been hit “pretty hard”.
She says farmers have been faring well despite these issues.
“Most of them are cautiously optimistic,” she told Dairy News.
However, the wet weather has been “tempering everybody’s optimism”.
“I think most farmers are pretty well prepared for the weather as best as they can be,” Speight says.
She adds that DairyNZ has resources available on its website for farmers who need a refresher on how to deal with the bad weather and she says there are DairyNZ team members available for those who are concerned about how to manage.
“We’re [DairyNZ] doing the bits we can to try and help out but we’re very aware that this is the time of year when people’s heads are down and are just [trying to get through] as best they can," Speight says.
One positive, Speight says, is that calving rates in terms of numbers have been good, but that too has its downsides with farmers impacted by labour shortages.
“It just means that they’ll be keeping longer hours, working harder,” she says. “Particularly with wet weather, there’s all this management farmers need to do in order to avoid pasture damage so… it just means farmers are working longer hours.”
“So, the work is still being done, the milk is still going into the vat, the cows are still being well cared for, but it just means there are some of our farmers who are working a lot longer hours than we would like to see them working at this time of the year.”
Speight says that while farmers are working longer hours, she does hope that they are taking into account that they will require some downtime when the season starts to wind down.
OPINION: It's no surprise that "world-class biosecurity" continues to dominate as the top priority for agribusiness leaders, holding the number one spot for the 16th consecutive year in KPMG's latest agribusiness report.
DairyNZ says Waikato farmers need certainty on Plan Change 1, but they say that certainty must be matched with practical, workable rules and a clear transition that doesn't get ahead of the new resource management system currently under review.
OPINION: The dairy sector has been told that it cannot afford to rest on its laurels.
The dairy industry cannot rest on its laurels despite providing one in every four export dollars earned by the country, says DairyNZ chief executive Campbell Parker.
Increased competition for water means the whole community is looking at how irrigators use water.
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.
