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The Hauraki Plains Focus Farm project is an initiative led by a group of local dairy farmers that have formed the “P3 Dairy” Charitable Trust, where P3 stands for Productivity and Profitability on the Plains. As the name suggests, the trust’s aim is to increase farm profitability and sustainability across the plains for the benefit of the community. Click here to view a full list of the committee's objectives. |
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The Trust committee is made up of seven farmers and one rural professional, and is funded by New Zealand dairy farmers through DairyNZ. The Trust’s role is to administer the funding and oversee the project management team, which consists of Wayne Berry and Murray Perks of Dairy NZ, and Dave Miller of AgFirst, in conjunction with the farm owners.
The project came about after local farmers and the Hauraki District Council approached DairyNZ to discuss ways to improve productivity and profitability on the Hauraki Plains. During these discussions a concerning trend was uncovered. On a milksolids (MS) per hectare basis, the performance of the Hauraki Plains is lower than the Waikato average, and that gap seems to be widening as shown in the figures below.
In the early ‘90s, milk production in the Hauraki Plains was about 20kg MS/ha/year on average behind the Waikato. In recent years, the difference has been more like 60kg MS/ha with the gap widening at the rate of 3.4kg ms/ha/year.
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We are not sure why this is happening, but the focus farm is one way of investigating and addressing this issue, in addition to demonstrating the P3 committee’s objectives outlined above. The project is expected to last for three seasons, with regular updates to interested farmers via email newsletters, field days and other extension outlets.
Hauraki Plains Focus Farm progress reports:
Hauraki Plains Focus Farm updates:
- 24 April 2012
- 17 April 2012
- 10 April 2012
- 3 April 2012
- 27 March 2012
- 20 March 2012
- 13 March 2012
- 21 February 2012
- 14 February 2012
- 8 February 2012
- 31 January 2012
- 24 January 2012
- 17 January 2012
- 10 January 2012
- 20 December 2011
- 13 December 2011
- 7 December 2011
- 23 November 2011
- 15 November 2011
- 8 November 2011
- 1 November 2011
- 26 October 2011
- 18 October 2011
- 11 October 2011
- 4 October 2011
- 27 September 2011
- 20 September 2011
- 13 September 2011
- 9 September 2011
- 2 September 2011
To register for e-newsletter updates click here.
*If you've registered but have not received the e-newsletter, please check your SPAM or junk mail folder and mark the email as 'safe'.
If you are using a mail client such as Outlook then that will never get any junk mail that the yahoo, xtra, hotmail etc server has already filtered. You must log in to e.g http://mail.yahoo.com in order to see the junk mail.
If you have any problems please email: renee.hoad@dairynz.co.nz.
Contacts:
| Wayne Berry | Project Manager, DairyNZ | 027 293 4401 |
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Dave Miller |
AgFirst Agricultural Consultant |
021 287 7070 |
| Murray Perks | DairyNZ Consulting Officer for the Hauraki Plains | 021 242 2127 |
| Michael Newson | P3 Charitable Trust Chairman | 021 241 8177 |
| Duncan Smeaton | DairyNZ Regional Leader North Waikato | 021 245 8055 |
More information:
