Proposed investment priorities 2009-15
Over the past five years a number of important issues have emerged that have already, or will, affect farmers’ businesses in the years to come. They include:
- Climate change: Greenhouse gas emissions and climate change have emerged as major national and international political issues. The Government’s Emissions Trading Scheme proposes that agriculture meet the cost of emissions over 90% of 2005 levels in 2013 when the scheme comes into effect for the industry. Producing less waste from our cows will both reduce our emissions and enhance productivity.
- Environment: There is a growing pressure from government and the community for the dairy industry to develop more environmentally sustainable farm management practices for water allocation and use, effluent treatment and disposal, and nutrient run-off and leaching into waterways.
- Adoption on farm: Structures on-farm are now more complex and diverse, with more employed labour rather than owner-operated. There is a need to develop channels to transfer new farming knowledge and technology more quickly to the right people on-farm and encourage them to use it.
- People: There is increasing difficulty in finding suitable labour for employment on dairy farms.
- Homegrown feed: This is the cheapest feed source for dairy farmers and enhances our international competitiveness. We need to accelerate gains made in the breeding and better use of pasture plants.
Continued investment in dairy industry good activities is crucial to help tackle these challenges and minimise the threat they pose to our industry. There are a number of priority areas in which our industry needs to invest to enable that to happen.
A greater focus on these areas will also enable us to continue to build on the progress we’ve made to date toward achieving the objectives of our long-term strategic plan - boosting on-farm productivity, growing milksolids and ensuring farmers’ continued freedom to operate.
Proposed investment priorities 2009-2015
This section features a selection of industry good activities in each area that are expected to deliver the biggest returns to farmers and the industry. To achieve the objectives in each area, DairyNZ will invest in the research, development, extension and advocacy activities outlined in the links below.
The majority of activities listed are already in progress and being funded by dairy farmers. However, in some cases we are building on existing activity in order to address emerging issues.
Note that benefits stated are based on estimated values.
