BOP Focus on Dairying is a joint initiative between the farming community and rural leaders with DairyNZ as the principal funder.

A farmer-led committee comprised of farmers and rural professionals from the project area run the project. The committee focuses on topics ranging from farm profitability through to management options to managing summer dry challenges.

BOP Focus on Dairying initiatives include:

• recording seasonal progress of four monitor farms (Opotoki, Awakeri, Galatea and Pikowai)
• promoting/driving on-farm research in the region
• providing farmers with local climate and pasture growth data relevant to their district.

Bay of Plenty monitor farms

The farms that provide data are located in Opotoki, Awakeri, Galatea and Pikowai.

Farmers can access data from these farms in their area by signing up for regular Bay of Plenty Monitor Farm emails.

The emails provide updates on pasture growth rates, average pasture cover, rotation length, feed intake and type of feed, feed quality analysis, N use, rainfall, soil temperature, milk production figures and number of cows in milk. 

To sign up for regular updates email ross.bishop@dairynz.co.nz or visit the Subscriptions page.