LIC has tested the parentage of approximately 550,000 animals in 2021/22. Photo / Supplied
When it comes to research and development, agritech is the quiet achiever helping Kiwi dairy farmers become the most efficient milk producers in the world.
To help the sector meet its climate targets, Research and Development (R&D) investment and innovation will play a critical role.
And it's big business.
According to the 2022 Technology Investment Network (TIN) NZ Agritech Insights Report, the top 22 New Zealand agritech companies spent $115.6 million on R&D alone last year.
At number two on the list, farmer-owned herd improvement co-operative LIC last year invested $18.2 million - the equivalent of 6.9 per cent of its revenue.
Over the last ten years, the co-op has invested $156.4 million into R&D projects, including promising research into breeding cows that produce less methane.
LIC is in its second year of investigating the link between a bull's genetics and its methane emissions, LIC Chief Executive David Chin said.
The research measures methane emissions from the burps of young bulls set to father the next generation of New Zealand's dairy cows.
The aim was to provide Kiwi dairy farmers with the ability to breed low methane-emitting cows from low methane-emitting artificial breeding bulls, Chin said.
"Like many R&D projects, it's a long game but LIC's investment now could make a big difference to farmers in the future.
"Every dairy farmer in New Zealand should expect to be milking the best cows in the world – dairy cows that produce more milk, more efficiently and with a lighter environmental footprint.
"LIC's ongoing investment in R&D will help make that a reality."
However, it's not just about investigating bull burps.
LIC has four other innovative projects it has put R&D funding towards, to help Kiwi farmers build a better herd.
Problem: Knowing which cow gave birth to which calf in peak calving can be difficult and prone to error.
Solution: Using a small tissue sample from an animal's ear, LIC's GeneMark service uses DNA technology to match calves to their parents, ensuring farmers retain their best calves that will grow into highly efficient milk producers.
The process
LIC started developing the GeneMark service in the late 90s/early 2000s and it was first available to farmers in 2001.
The road to offering the GeneMark service to farmers wasn't easy, LIC said, as existing technology to identify parentage was initially very expensive, prone to error and ill-suited to NZ's dairy industry.
With no off-the-shelf solution available, LIC had to come up with its own.
It took several years for the technology to evolve to a point where it was scalable, cost-effective and could deliver what farmers needed.
The numbers
• Approximately 550,000 animals tested for parentage in 2021/22.
• 3.88 million animals tested for parentage since 2012.
• LIC committed $11 million over a four-year period from 2020 to improve its GeneMark technology and provide the ability to offer new products and services such as:
- Genomic evaluation for dairy cows – adds an animal's DNA information to its evaluation, so farmers get a more reliable prediction of their performance before they start milking.
- Identify calves with genetic variants – in 2021, LIC scientists discovered six genetic variants that impact animal health, to the tune of up to $10 million in lost production each year across the national dairy herd.
- Animals that are tested through GeneMark are automatically screened for the variants free of charge and farmers are informed of any affected animals in their herd.
Problem: Having access to young, genetically superior bulls to breed the next generation of dairy cows is key to increasing a herd's production efficiency, but traditionally it has been difficult to get an accurate prediction of their performance at a young age.
Solution: LIC utilises genomic technology, adding a young bull's DNA into its evaluation, to provide a much earlier, reliable prediction of the offspring it'll produce. This ultimately gives farmers access to the latest elite bulls for artificial breeding at two years of age, instead of five.
The process
LIC has invested tens of millions of dollars over the past 30 years to pioneer the use of genomics in New Zealand's diverse crossbred dairy population.
In 2010, LIC started genotyping cows to increase the accuracy of its genomic predictions, something that hadn't been done before at the time.
LIC now has DNA information from a quarter of a million animals for genomic evaluation, the largest dataset in New Zealand of its kind.
In 2020, LIC developed and implemented an enhanced animal evaluation process that combines an animal's ancestry, performance data and DNA information all in one step to more accurately estimate its genetic merit and value to the dairy industry.
The bigger dataset coupled with an improved process has enabled LIC to select young bulls with better accuracy than ever.
The numbers
• Genetic gain contributes around $300 million per annum to the NZ dairy industry.
• According to LIC, over the past 10 years, long-term users of its genetics have almost doubled the rate of genetic gain in their herds - and genomics has been the key contributor.
• 250,000 animals genotyped by LIC for genomic evaluation.
Problem: Every day a cow doesn't produce milk is a lost revenue opportunity for a farmer.
Days in milk is a key driver in optimising farm profitability with later calving cows requiring additional feed and maintenance costs proportional to their annual productive output.
Solution: SGL semen tightens a herd's calving period and boosts profits by reducing the gestation length of the resulting calf by up to 12 days.
These additional days in milk are a compelling value proposition for farmers particularly at the current milk price.
The process
LIC started developing SGL semen in the early 2000s after discovering gestation length was a strongly heritable trait, meaning it would be passed on to offspring.
LIC identified the shortest gestation cows in the general population and bred them with their shortest gestation standard dairy bulls.
This has resulted in a team of SGL bulls being available to farmers for artificial breeding since 2014.
The numbers
• LIC's SGL dairy semen generated 818,996 extra days in milk in the 2021/22 season.
• Between 2008-2015 LIC invested approximately $250k per year in its SGL breeding programme.
• In 2021/22 LIC sold 241,558 straws of SGL dairy semen, more than five times the 2013/14 number (42,847 straws).
Problem: Johne's Disease is a chronic gut infection in ruminant animals and can lead to lower milk production, difficulty reproducing, rapid weight loss, diarrhoea and death.
The disease is common on New Zealand dairy farms and costs the industry between $40-88 million in lost milk production every year.
Solution: LIC developed a process to help farmers identify Johne's Disease in their herd as efficiently as possible.
LIC tests milk samples that are sent in for a routine herd test for an antibody in the milk which indicates that an animal has Johne's Disease.
The test can identify animals before they become super-shedders that are excreting large amounts of bacteria and putting farmers' herds at risk.
Farmers can then work with their vets to develop a management plan to deal with high-risk animals and help stop the disease from spreading.
The Process
As the Johne's Disease milk test only works with defatted milk, it required creative thinking and external collaboration to come up with a cost-effective solution.
Inserts are placed into cooled milk samples which pierce through the cream layer and allow a fat-free sub-sample to be taken from the milk sample for testing.
LIC commercialised its Johne's Disease test in the 2015/2016 season and it's now one of its most popular animal health tests.
The numbers
• 1 million samples processed in the 2021/22 season, up from 240,000 samples in the 2016/17 season.
"If you’re loyal to them, they will be loyal to you."