Dairy NZ

Bay of Plenty Focus on Dairying is an initiative by local dairy farmers in the Bay of Plenty to explore ways for local farmers to make their farms profitable, sustainable and satisfying for all stakeholders. These values underpin a healthy rural community, where we and our children can prosper and grow.

The Bay has a long tradition of farming leadership through effective demonstration. This dates back to the successful Omeheu and Awaroa demonstration farms in the '70s and '80s and was reinvented in the '90s as the Comparative Farm programme run by Bay Milk Products, with able assistance from a number of local farmers and rural professionals. For some years there has been no comparable programme and dairying in the Bay has been the poorer for that.

The huge impact of effective demonstration has not been forgotten by the people involved and there is a rising groundswell of support for a similar programme to enthuse and upskill the latest generation of farmers, sharemilkers, managers and farm staff.

We have enthusiastic support from research institutions such as DairyNZ and AgResearch and expect there will be frequent dialogue with them as we endeavour to implement best practice on-farm.

However, the key to the success of a project such as this is local vision and initiative. This means leadership, ownership, and participation from the local community.

That is exactly what has happened here. This project is a joint initiative - between the farming community, rural leaders, as well as DairyNZ as the principal funder.

The aims of the project are to influence farmers in the BOP to make their farms more profitable and sustainable by:

1. Setting up a focus farm with a farmer whose beliefs largely align with industry “best practise” to demonstrate the process and actions to improve their performance to meet their goals within their resources.  This involves collecting and analysing data to show cause and effect as to how improvements are made
2. To promote/drive research and investigation on commercial farms in the BOP on how to improve pasture persistence, mastitis and achieve the industry targets for reproduction
3. Provide farmers with local climate and pasture growth data relevant to their district.

Focus Farm:  The focus farm has completed three years on Wilson and Sandra James' farm at Awakeri with the current focus farm being Richard and Creina James' farm at Matata.

Mastitis: BOP Focus on Dairy has done case studies on 4 farms with low BMSCC to identify the key drivers and has to date has supported seven farms with high BMSCC to work through a process to improve mastitis.  The case studies being reported to farms in the BOP.

DairyBase: 23 farms largely in the Whakatane district provided their financial and physical information to profitability for the 2009/10 financial year and this was analysed as a group.  The district now has 2 farms to benchmark against in DairyBase.  Data from these farms is being collected for the 2010/11 season. 

Reproduction: In 2011 an InCalf farmer Action group is being partially funded by BOP Focus on Dairying.  Participants include either a farm consultant or vet and a farmer client.  The effectiveness of this group to improve reproduction on these farms will be analysed by DairyNZ at the completion of the 12 month program.

Pasture Persistence: BOP Focus on Dairying initiated the industry focus on pasture persistence and has been part of the successful DairyNZ/SSF bid for another 3 years of study (ending May 2014) into pasture persistence in the BOP and Waikato.

Local Data: Pasture growth data is currently collected for 3 farms in Whakatane and Opotiki and Environment BOP have set up weather stations on 3 farms in Galatea and Whakatane.

Contacts:

For more information:

• BOP Focus Farm profile
• Farm walks - BOP Focus Farm
• Field days - BOP Focus Farm