The benefits of a good winter feeding schedule that leads to ewes having better body conditions scores (BCS) at the start of lambing was highlighted at a field day last week reports The Southland Times. More than 200 farmers attended the Meat & Wool New Zealand Southern South Island sheep and beef council field day at the Woodlands research farm on Wednesday.

Dr David Stevens, of AgResearch, said it was clear poor winter feeding affected several aspects of production before, during and after lambing, and it was essential for good lamb growth, particularly multiples, to have ewes in good condition. “You’re no longer expecting one lamb and 5 kilograms of wool.”

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The Councils of Lincoln University and Telford Rural Polytechnic are exploring a future relationship that includes a proposal to merge the two institutions next year. This relationship supports a direction signalled by the Lincoln University Council to develop a model of strong collaboration in education and research to support land-based industries.

Lincoln University, New Zealand’s specialist land-based university, is shaping this model in line with two governmental intentions; to drive productivity growth and investment in the export sector and to give young people wider choices in education. This model is one of vertical integration to encompass all aspects of the agricultural and land-based sector provision and supply chain, from secondary school, sub-degree teaching to post-doctoral research, commercialisation and extension activities with industry.

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A team from AgResearch, led by Dr Neels Botha, reported “shocking” levels of stress after interviews with 60 North Island farmers. “We fear there could be quite a bit of depression in the farming community in the coming years,” said Botha. The 2007 study involved farmers in the Manawatu, Taupo and Rotorua areas, who were all facing new policies from regional authorities reports The NZ Herald.

“In our conversations it became clear that these people are concerned and stressed about potential regulation and changes in policy,” Botha said. Farmers worried for their livelihood experienced shock, denial, anger and fear, he said, which could lead to drinking, increasing isolation and aggression. Unchecked, it could also lead to depression and, in a worst-case scenario, suicide.

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A new welfare code for dairy cattle has been criticised by Federated Farmers for “confusing legal requirements with best recommended practices” reports The NZ Herald. Federated Farmers Dairy vice chairperson John Bluett says he is worried the new code could mean farmers are punished if the way they farm does not meet the recommendations.

The latest Animal Welfare (Dairy Cattle) Code of Welfare 2010 released last week consolidates a range of already existing documents. “It’ll be fine if it’s used as a training guide for stockmanship, then it would help, ” said Bluett.

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The doyen of farm management education and research in New Zealand, Sir James Douglas Stewart, Emeritus Professor of Farm Management at Lincoln University,  died in Christchurch on Friday 19 February aged 84.Sir James was successively a student, lecturer, professor and principal at Lincoln University in the days when it was Canterbury Agricultural College then Lincoln College.

Born in Wanganui in August 1925,  Sir James was a Cantabrian by adoption, his long association with the province beginning in 1944 when he was selected as a Rural Field Cadet to study at Canterbury Agricultural College.The Canterbury connection ran deep over the years and not only in education. Rugby was an abiding passion and from student days as a front row forward and captain of Canterbury Agricultural College’s 1st XV and as a New Zealand Universities representative, he progressed to Canterbury  representative honours, then ultimately became Canterbury’s selector-coach.

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John Labes, a Lawrence farming leader, is still as passionately concerned about farm safety issues as he was 40 years ago. Mr Labes (69), a former executive officer of the Clutha Agricultural Development Board and former sheep farmer, said 18 people he had known – mainly Otago farmers and rural contractors – had died over the past 40 years in farm accidents. He and his wife Aileen, who moved to Mosgiel in retirement last month, have long been involved, through FarmSafe educational programmes, in helping to improve farm safety in Clutha and throughout Otago.

“Farm injuries are not inevitable,” he said. “One of the myths is that getting injured is part and parcel of being a farmer. That myth needed to be broken. “It’s not inevitable any more than because you own a car you’re going to have an accident.” Mr Labes has held many farming industry leadership roles at regional and national level reports The Otago Daily Times.

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Billions of dollars could be added to farmers’ profits if they focused more on pasture renewal, a new study reveals. The Pasture Renewal Charitable Trust this week suggested a switch in focus from animal improvements to pasture development was required to increase farm productivity reports The NBR. The trust commissioned Wellington-based company BERL (Business and Economic Research Ltd) to complete an economic analysis of the value of pasture to NZ’s economy.

BERL determined that pasture was worth $20.5 billion to NZ’s gross domestic product (12.1% of GDP) and $10.2 billion to producers at the farm gate. Trust chairman Murray Willocks told NBR that the low cost of animal feed is NZ’s economic edge, and it could be expanded on to the tune of billions of extra dollars each year. “All our dairying and beef and sheep farming operations are dependent on our pastures,” Mr Willocks said. “As we look to economic growth, we should look at investment in pasture as a key contributor.”

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Behind-the-scenes efforts are under way to find a new funding stream to train shearers and shedhands. Agriculture industry training organistion chief executive Kevin Bryant said he was working closely with M&WNZ and others in the wool industry ahead of a series of meetings to try and find a replacement for the $300,000 farmers provided to fund the training of shearers and shedhands.

Chaiman Mike Petersen said the board’s chairman, Scott Champion, would convene a meeting in the next few weeks to discuss the industry contributing to the training of shearers, woolhandlers and classers. Those invited to attend include the Council of Wool Exporters, the NZ Merino Company, Woolpartners, Elders Primary Wool and shearing contractors.

“The fact is farmers said no to the wool levy so we obviously lost $300,000 of M&WNZ contribution and that leveraged close to $1.5 million of government money which allowed us to provide subsidised training to over 1000 shearers and woolhandlers through a partnership with Tectra.” If the industry did not contribute to training, then neither would the Government, but Mr Bryant said farmers could end up paying anyway.

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M&WNZ has a new organisational structure ‘to ensure a greater connection with sheep and beef farmers’. Chairman Mike Petersen says the restructure of the organisation resulted in the disestablishment of 23 roles and the creation of seven new positions reports Rural News. The restructuring, required because of the failed wool levy vote in the recent referendum, has forced the organisation to look closely across all activities and decide what was going to provide the best return for farmers.

 ‘The reality of the loss of $6.4 million in wool levies has forced us to think carefully about what we do and how we deliver to farmers and it has catalysed some significant change for the organisation. We have approached this from the basis of needing to reduce costs, but also from making effectiveness changes to improve the impact of the business. This is so we can deliver on the mandate farmers have given us in respect to the sheepmeat and beef levies. Inevitably, that means staff redundancies of 23 roles and the creation of seven new positions.

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Tasmanian beef producers have set a challenge to their mainland counterparts – to achieve beef production of 2000 kgs liveweight gain per hectare per year from pasture-based grazing systemsreports Rural News. This was a key outcome of the five-year, $A2.1 million ($NZ2.44m) Red Meat Targets (RMT) programme, developed to help red meat producers boost production and profits using existing knowledge and technologies.

The RMT programme identified considerable opportunities for red meat producers in Tasmania – but they also apply right across southern Australia – to increase beef and lamb production and productivity from pasture-based systems. One project within the programme – Winnaleah Towards 2000 – in north-eastern Tasmania achieved a top production result last year of 1981kg liveweight gain/ha/year using a rotational grazing system with strategic nitrogen applications and irrigation.

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