Our farmers are already the most efficient milk producers in the world and luckily, Kiwi farmers are very good at experimenting and adapting to change, says David Chin. Photo / NZME
Our farmers are already the most efficient milk producers in the world and luckily, Kiwi farmers are very good at experimenting and adapting to change, says David Chin. Photo / NZME
OPINION: David Chin, the chief executive of agritech and herd improvement co-operative LIC, on the big changes Kiwi dairy farmers are facing, and how his company is helping them tackle the future.
New Zealand is facing some big challenges and is undergoing significant change.
The political landscape is shifting and still uncertain — we have a new prime minister and an election this year that might result in more political change.
We’re dealing with the fallout from some of the most significant weather events in our nation’s history, while also adjusting to the long-term challenges of lowering our industry’s emissions.
We’re seeing shifting customer demands overseas creating both risks and opportunities, while cost pressures have been mounting at home. But I believe if there is one industry that is prepared to adapt and embrace the challenge, it’s dairy.
Changing demands are nothing new for our industry, farmers are programmed to think ahead and develop solutions to suit our changing world.
I’ve seen this first hand as chief executive of Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC), an agritech and herd improvement co-op owned by New Zealand dairy farmers.
While change is here, the fundamental challenges remain the same. The problem we’ve been trying to solve is — how does a primary-producing country tackle climate change and its methane emissions, while protecting our most lucrative industry? As a recession looms, the latter consideration is more critical than ever.
The combination of these factors makes it an interesting and dynamic time to be working in the primary industries.
Post Covid, New Zealanders appreciate the massive productivity and profitability of agriculture, forecast to produce an estimated $55 billion of export revenue in 2023, with dairy making up over 40 per cent of this.
While milk prices look good from the outside, inflation is eating up all the margins that farmers should be making — as prices go up, so do their costs.
To remain profitable and innovative amid rising cost pressures, farmers have to spend their money wisely while responding to consumer expectations on emissions reduction and what it means to farm sustainably.
LIC chief executive David Chin says it's an interesting and dynamic time to be working in the primary industries. Photo / Supplied
Our farmers are already the most efficient milk producers in the world and luckily, Kiwi farmers are very good at experimenting and adapting to change.
Our pasture-based farming system is built on ryegrass and clover, but farmers continually experiment with different crops such as plantain, chicory and fodder beet to name a few.
This is about building a more resilient farming system in the face of feed shortages, whether that be in summer or winter. Farmers are now experimenting with regenerative farming to understand what role that could play, and I’ll watch with interest the outcomes of the Ngāi Tahu regenerative farming trial.
We are always innovating and finding ways to do things better.
The change in milking times is another classic example — no one had previously taken an experimental approach to the traditional twice-a-day milking schedule, but now many farmers opt for variable milking plans (once a day, 10 milkings over a week, or three milkings in two days) to improve animal welfare outcomes and offer better flexibility and working hours for staff.
In anticipation of increasing challenges in 2023 and beyond, farmers are hitting two birds with one stone by investing more in herd improvement to breed more-sustainable and profitable animals.
We’re fortunate to have world-leading technology and bright people already making great headway in this space to support Kiwi farmers. Here are some ways we are doing it.
Methane research programme
Bull burps could hold the answer to breeding climate-friendly cows
LIC is in the third year of investigating the link between a bull’s genetics and its methane emissions with the aim of providing Kiwi dairy farmers with the ability to breed low-methane-emitting cows.
We’ve found that the amount of methane a bull produces directly relates to the amount of food it eats — generally speaking the more an animal eats, the more methane it will emit. But after accounting for differences in the bulls’ feed intake, we’re still seeing genetic variation in their methane emissions, proving genetics do play a role — this is extremely promising.
Funded by the New Zealand Greenhouse Gas Research Centre, this methane research is a joint initiative being run by LIC and CRV who together sire 90 per cent of the New Zealand dairy herd.
It is a great example of collaboration and partnership and has the potential to make a real difference to farmers in the future by helping ensure reducing a farm’s emissions doesn’t have to come at the cost of reducing its milk production.
As global temperatures rise, everyone is feeling the heat — cows included. Fortunately, our scientists are one step closer to enabling farmers to breed more-heat-tolerant cows after a trial found dairy cows with the “slick” gene are less affected by heat stress compared with their non-slick counterparts.
Heat stress can affect a dairy cow’s welfare, impacting their feed intake, milk production, fertility and calf birth weight.
The slick gene could be a hugely valuable tool for improving the overall wellbeing of New Zealand dairy cows by producing high-genetic-merit dairy cows that are better equipped to deal with the heat.
If the breeding programme continues to progress as expected, Kiwi farmers will be able to breed heat-tolerant cows by 2029.
Genomics
Breeding from the best bulls is crucial for farmers to stay on top of their bottom line, and any data that helps them identify a bull’s genetic merit early on is an asset.
Farmers want every generation to be better than the one that came before, and genomics plays a vital role in accelerating the rate of genetic gain.
Traditionally, it has been difficult to get an accurate prediction of a bull’s performance at a young age. That’s why farmers are utilising LIC’s genomic technology, which adds a young bull’s DNA into its evaluation process, to provide a much earlier, reliable prediction of the offspring it’ll produce.
This allows farmers to breed from the elite bulls sooner, rapidly increasing the rate of genetic gain.
Over the past 10 years, long-term users of LIC’s bull genetics have almost doubled the rate of genetic gain in their herds — and genomics has been the key contributor.
Not only are they breeding genetically superior cows which are more emissions-efficient, but they’re breeding them at a much faster rate.
This is not a moonshot — it’s real, it’s tangible and it’s helping farmers stay ahead of the game while helping them achieve their environmental goals.
The strength of the New Zealand dairy industry is our ability to experiment with new ideas and share our findings.
As New Zealanders observe the transformation ahead of us, they can rest assured farmers are actively adopting the solutions needed to future-proof one of our most important industries.
LIC is proud to be working alongside farmers to provide them with the tools they need to adapt to change.
– David Chin is chief executive of Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC), an agritech and herd improvement co-operative that is owned by more than 9000 farmer shareholders and breeds up to 75 per cent of the national dairy herd.
