The Dairy Exporter’s Sheryl Haitana and Anne Lee attended the 25th South Island Dairy Expo (SIDE) this week, to catch up on the latest dairy innovations. They chatted to the keynote speakers about resilience and wellbeing, rural bank lending, and the impact new proteins will have on dairy products, and how they can coexist alongside each other.

Guests include:

1. Jonathan Hoets, Chair of SIDE
2. Dr Dan Pronk, Author & Doctor
3. Cameron Bagrie, Independent Economist, Bagrie Economics
4. Dr Jeremy Hill, Chief Science & Technology Officer, Fonterra

Hosts:

1. Sheryl Haitana, Editor, Dairy Exporter
2. Anne Lee, Deputy Editor, Dairy Exporter

Jonathan Hoets tells Sheryl about his time as the Chair of SIDE for its 25th anniversary. He says one thing he’s really taken away from this year’s conference is that the core opportunities and challenges for dairy farmers have stayed very similar over SIDE’s lifetime, but dairy farmers have continued to evolve to meet them, and do better year-on-year.

Former Australian SAS Doctor and author Dan Pronk was a keynote speaker at the 2024 SIDE Conference, and spoke to the stress experienced by dairy farmers, and how to build resilience while experiencing long-term stress. He tells Anne about the research he’s done into managing chronic stress, such as meditation, mindfulness, and sleep, and practising these regularly rather than doing extreme resets.

Economist Cameron Bagrie shares his insights into where dairy currently fits into New Zealand’s economy, and says that while 2024 and 2025 will be tough, he expects we’ll bounce back due to the strong potential of our economy. He also discusses rural lending, and issues around farm mortgages being so much bigger than housing ones, and where succession fits into this. He questions whether banks are behaving in the right way to foster economic prosperity, particularly within the primary industries.

Jeremy Hill talks about the Sustainable Nutrition Initiative, alternative proteins and precision fermentation and the challenges those technologies face in terms of economy of scale. He says it will be complimentary, not disruptive to dairy.

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With extreme weather events becoming more common, hot days in the sun are bad enough for people – so what are we doing for our livestock? Heat stress is a concerning issue for cows, but what are some cost-effective, practical solutions? And is it part of a broader conversation about farm-system resilience?

Hear from three experts in this field: Kyle Wills on a practical farm try-out; Annabel Davies on what Pāmu have implemented; and Dr Helen Beattie on practical solutions from an animal welfare perspective.

Guests include:

1. Kyle Wills, Primary Industries Consultant, WSP
2. Annabel Davies, Chief Sustainability and Risk Officer, Pāmu
3. Dr Helen Beattie, Veterinarian, Veterinarians for Animal Welfare Aotearoa

Hosts:

1. Sheryl Haitana, Editor, Dairy Exporter
2. Delwyn Dickey, Journalist, Dairy Exporter

Kyle Wills from WSP has been part of a study looking into the benefits of agroforestry systems on the Canterbury Plains. The study looked at both the benefits to animals, but also the financial gain for the farmer, from integrating forestry onfarm.

He says a lot of people assume this means planting pine trees, but in reality there was a lot of native planting integration based on a farm-by-farm basis. They found that having an agroforestry system can also benefit pasture growth onfarm, due to nitrogen availability and soil moisture conservation. Read the full report here.

Annabel Davies from Pāmu says the biggest barrier for farmers is the real or perceived cost of implementing long-term shelter solutions.

She says Pāmu have approached it on a farm-by-farm basis, to come up with unique solutions for each of their farms across the country. Part of this has been looking at how they can make best use of existing hectares on each farm. This could look like agroforestry and biodiversity planting, to build resilience onfarm.

Veterinarian Dr Helen Beattie says shelter and shade systems for animals are just one piece of the puzzle, when it comes to making our overall farm systems more resilient. She says getting to that point isn’t easy, and will be a matter of decades of work, not years, but is something we should be working towards.

She discusses the impact consumer pressure is likely to have on expectations for shade and shelter onfarm, and also the pressure of overseas markets to make sure our animals aren’t at risk of heat stress.

Read Delwyn’s report in the Dairy Exporter Magazine here.

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There is a global race happening to reduce emissions from dairy farming with more solutions potentially becoming available to housed-cow systems. So where does that position New Zealand’s pastoral model?

A big part of the emissions conversation is also around regenerative agriculture. Global companies such as Nestlé, Danone and Mars have all set targets to source more products from regenerative agriculture so what does that mean and how do New Zealand farmers fit into this definition of regenerative agriculture?

Hear from three different agribusinesses about how the dairy industry is working to meet emissions targets.

Guests include:

1. Margaret Stuart, Director of Corporate Affairs and Sustainability, Nestlé Oceania
2. Charlotte Rutherford, Director of Sustainability, Fonterra
3. Wayne McNee, CEO, AgriZero

Hosts:

1. Sheryl Haitana, Editor, Dairy Exporter
2. Anne Lee, Deputy Editor, Dairy Exporter

Nestlé Oceania’s Margaret Stuart says they have both a business and moral imperative to find ways of reducing the impacts of climate change. Dairy makes up 21% of their emissions, and they’ve put a focus on ensuring any changes are fair to the farmer, including by providing incentive payments and funding research.

She says at the moment New Zealand farmers have the advantage of a pasture based system, but this shouldn’t make them complacent.

Fonterra’s Charlotte Rutherford says regenerative agriculture is rising in popularity globally and for Fonterra, it is a massive opportunity. New Zealand farmers are already doing really well on the likes of Nestlé’s scorecard when it comes to regenerative practices because of our pastoral systems.

Charlotte says the NZ dairy industry is amongst the lowest emission producers and the cooperative is absolutely on track to reduce onfarm emissions by 30% by 2030, but NZ has to work hard to keep up with the leading pack in the emissions race.

AgriZero is a joint venture between the private sector and the government, focusing on reducing methane and nitrous oxide emissions from livestock. Unlike similar projects globally, they are focusing on finding solutions for farmers in pastoral systems.

CEO Wayne McNee says the 2030 targets are ambitious, and go beyond the targets set by the government, but it’s given them a really good push to find ways for farmers to significantly reduce their emissions. He says they’ve done this to meet standards being set by both their overseas customers but also overseas governments.

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