The research papers will be delivered for the first time at a marae, Rukupo, the Maori Battalion marae at Manutuke, on the outskirts of Gisborne. The marae is in the home town of one of the scholars, Gregg Pardoe, operations manager for Maori farming incorporation Arai Matawai in Gisborne, who studied how indigenous peoples in the United States have adapted to modern farming practices.

Mandi McLeod, a Te Awamutu agri-business consultant with stakes in a dairy farm in Morrinsville and a King Country sheep and beef farm, said her research highlighted the importance of business succession planning.”People need to move away from seeing succession planning as the transfer of the farm assets.”

Alec Jack, of Northland, has researched a trademark beef brand as well as rural tourism options for his farm, and said he found environmental, animal welfare and ethical issues were important in adding value to beef. “My great fear is that the profitability of sheep and beef farms is so low it’s going to be a huge struggle for farmers to meet environmental aspirations of NZ and (overseas) consumers,” said Mr Jack.

 Methven farmer Craige Mackenzie researched carbon footprints and set up his own business to make precision agriculture – using satellite-based measurements – as a tool for improved sustainability. “Precision agriculture will be our quickest way forward in improving farming’s sustainability and could provide us with the next agricultural revolution,” he said.

Northland hill country farmers James Parsons, a director of the nation’s meat industry board, said he investigated supply chain relationships and value chain design in the red meat and wool sector, and found the challenge was for farmers to capture efficiencies. “I don’t think we’ve progressed at all in terms of our ability to capture the value,” he said. “The tragedy is, unless the meat industry undergoes a significant structural shift we will trade all these efficiencies away, in the same way we traded away our production efficiency gains of the past 25 years”.

Ali Undorf-Lay sought ways to bridge the urban-rural divide, and has managed Federated Farmers’ open days this year and last year. “The challenge now will be to ensure that farmers don’t undervalue the power of personal story and are willing to … talk about their farming practices,” she said.

Queenstown businessman Les Keeper – who has three Southland dairy farms, a grain and grazing farm at Christchurch and other property investments – travelled to South America, Australia and Europe searching for ways to boost profits from milk. “There is a definite connection between raw milk, processing and ingredients, but not consumer products,” he said. “NZ’s only competitive advantage is it has the raw product”.

Study co-author Dr Stephan Milosavljevic says in examining the ergonomics, the problem of retaining stability on the quad bike in this up-hill, left-slope situation was compounded because the driver had to use their right hand to operate the bike’s throttle on the right of the bike. “In that situation, it is much more difficult for the person to turn uphill while holding the throttle,” he says. “Farmers who instinctively already know about this problem will say if you are on a left-facing slope and you have to turn, turn downhill. It is much safer.”

In the past ten years, 48 people in NZ have died as a result of accidents on quad bikes. After car accidents, they are the second highest cause of vehicle-related deaths in the rural community. The Otago researchers set out to analyse the driving behaviour of people who regularly use quad bikes, recognising a need to find out why people lose control of them so frequently.

Of the 30 male rural workers and farmers studied, 19 of them, or 63 percent, had experienced loss of control on a quad bike. They were in their mid 40s on average, and about eight to nine years younger and less experienced than those who did not lose control. Those who lost control traversed left- facing slopes differently to those who had not come off, tending to drift uphill.

The study, the first to show such findings, has recently been published in the journal Ergonomics. Co-author Dr Allan Carman used a device known as a tri-axial accelerometer, which measures tilt relative to gravity, to analyse the roll and pitch level of the quad bike for each worker during a full working day.

• The NZ and Australian dollars continue to reflect the growth differences between the two countries. Rabobank still expect both currencies to weaken against the US dollar in the second half of the year, although they will remain at elevated levels.

• Global dairy prices surprised on the upside in recent weeks, due to ongoing improvements in the global economy, a weak end to the NZ  production season and a slow start to the EU season. As a result, optimism is building for the 2010/11 season, particularly in Australia with soft feed grain prices and improved irrigation water availability.

• Young cattle prices have held up in Australia and NZ , with Australian prices at their highest level since the global economic downturn began. However, rising US exports into the Japanese market continue to increase competition for Australian beef.

• Global grain stocks continue to place downward pressure on world grain prices, with stocks expected to build again in the coming season. Improved seasonal conditions along the Australian east coast have raised expectations for the domestic crop. Rabobank has raised its wheat production forecast to 21.8 million tonnes, although rains over the next couple of months remain critical to this outlook.

• Oil prices remain elevated due to continued positive sentiment around the global economic recovery, with prices around USD34/barrel above this time a year ago.

Farmers in the Waikato, where YBG is now rampant, say it’s costing them $1100 a hectare in lost production and it just keeps getting worse. Setaria pumila is a common roadside grass that has jumped the fence and gone berserk. It may also have come in with imported hay, silage, or balage. It’s widespread in Northland and the Bay of Plenty. Now Taranaki farmers are seeing it in their pastures. Some finding it on their farms are scared to talk about it because they are worried it will discourage potential sharemilkers.

Cows don’t like it. There’s no selective spray available. The grass is difficult to identify until it produces a seed head and by then it’s too late, because the plant will have dropped tens of thousands of highly viable seeds. AgResearch scientists are experimenting with cropping and regrassing trials in the hope of coming up with a management strategy for farmers. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s sustainable farming fund has committed $396,000 to the YBG project. The grass was identified as a serious problem in 2006.

It flowers annually and quickly dominates other pasture species. The only consolation for host farmers is that it has a relatively short growing period and doesn’t survive frosts. The grass is common on roadsides, where it’s also known as foxtail or millet. In some countries, the grass is grown for birdseed. The young plant is palatable to stock, but they avoid it once the soft, bristly seed heads emerge from about mid-January through to May, a critical period of the milking season. That means infected paddocks must be mown for hay or cut for silage before Christmas.

Mr Wakelin said he didn’t want to wait until October 1 if there were options worth immediately exploring. “If there was something already running and could be brought to the board sooner we need to be looking at that,” he said. Dr Gavin Sheath, AgResearch’s commercial team leader for agriculture and the environment at the Ruakura campus in Hamilton, told a dozen farmers attending a rare field day at Whatawhata in November that the laboratory-equipped station was under-utilised.

“How many have Environment Waikato brought out to sit down and do this?” he asked. “We are not using it. It’s just a bloody waste.” Mr Wakelin said the demonstration farms would be focused on one topic at a time, rather than be like the monitor farm programme which was focused on full farm systems. “It’s important that we have better extension and uptake,” Mr Wakelin said.

Now in the third year of the monitor farm programme, the Shaws have made more than 20 changes to their farming operation and only four have not worked out with other changes making a huge difference on the farm and to the bottom line. The vision for Elmore at the start of the programme was to have an economic farm surplus that was up with the top 10 in the district; to have a farm that was aesthetically pleasing; to repay $100,000 of debt, and to generate enough cash for debt repayment and for the Shaws to have the ability to do what they wanted when they wanted to.
There have been many changes on the farm. The ones that did not work included increasing cow numbers, calving the cows among the ewes and fixed price contracts. Parts of the cropping trial have also been a learning curve. However, there were many changes that did work.

Going to once-a-year shearing has cut costs and produced good length wool and a big benefit of dropping the deer was that it freed up some good finishing land. The cropping programme meant cattle could be wintered more efficiently and then finished in the spring. Doing a faecal egg count reduction test, monthly faecal egg count monitoring and culturing, being part of a barber’s pole trial and a Johnnes trial meant a huge saving on drench and only animals that needed drenching were treated.

“We acted on results and information. If ever anyone offers a trial, now I say yes. Information is power to make better decisions.” There are now fewer mobs on the farm, simplifying classes of stock and condition scoring and weighing at critical times gives a good measure of breeding efficiency. Pasture quality is the biggest improvement, Mr Shaw says.

 It means they become empowered, rather than have financial incomings and outgoings just happening to them, Ms Rowe explained in the Manawatu Standard. About half of the women said they had done farm budgets, but many were uninitiated and she estimated less than half were doing farm budgets every year – let alone updating them every two months to keep them valid, as advised.

“It is important, because if you do a budget, you have control and understanding over the money coming in and going out and you don’t miss opportunities. You are more likely to meet your financial needs.” The dairy women were keen to exchange information and were happy to talk to each other about budgeting every chance they had. That included a very busy lunchtime, and in between Ms Rowe’s budgeting advice.

Ms Rowe, a sheep and beef farmer, told the dairy women she envied all the information they had access to on their farm’s finances. It included a lot of information sent to the farm by the dairy company they were providing milk to. “And that DairyNZ website is amazing. There is an amazing set of resources on there. ” It included budgeting advice and ready-to-use budgets. Ms Rowe said budgeting for dairy farms was simpler than for sheep and beef systems.

“Measuring milk in the vat makes it a simple structure and you are only dealing with one or two classes of stock on a dairy farm. Fewer stock classes and a focus on just milk. ” A sheep and beef farmer was dealing with multiple sheep and cattle classes, and different products going out the gate, making budgeting more complex, she said.

“It does mean for dairy, the structures are simpler and the resources are available. If sheep and beef farmers had vats that would be very empowering.”

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.”

Most farmers were achieving lambing rates of 130 per cent and some were reaching 160 per cent so losing one BCS during the winter was the equivalent of between 5kg and 7kg of liveweight, he said. Working out a feed schedule and feeding ewes evenly throughout winter would mean they would have higher BCS through winter, giving them a better chance to produce more lambs that were heavier, so they could achieve higher weights at weaning.

The loss of an average of one BCS in the lambing flock could mean between 6 and 10 per cent fewer lambs on the ground, up to 5kg lower lamb weaning weights, and up to 4 per cent more ewe deaths, Dr Stevens said. Ewes in good condition could produce lambs with birth weights up a kilogram, giving lambs the best possible start.

His comments were echoed by farming consultant Graham Butcher, of Rural Solutions, who said creating a full feed budget was simple. Farmers needed to determine on May 1 how much grass there was, what hay, baleage or silage was available, what the winter crop levels were, and consider the growing grass. They also needed to know stock levels and what they would need each day, and then it was simple to work out whether there would be a shortage or extra supply.

“It’s not complicated to work out. You do need to know your kilograms of dry matter, swede yield and paddock sizes to work it out. You also need to know you sheep weights, because they heavier they are, the more they’ll need to maintain that.” Dr Stevens said if the ewes were in good condition at lambing, lambs had a greater chance of going to the works at weaning. “The earlier you can get them away, the more time you have to get the ewes building back up again.”

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.

The proposed merger between Lincoln University and Telford Rural Polytechnic complements the existing partnerships the University already has in place.  Lincoln University will continue to enhance its Partnership for Excellence (PFX) relationship with Massey University and relevant industry partners, continue to develop the partnership with AgResearch Ltd that began last year and to develop the relationship with Ngai Tahu.

Telford Rural Polytechnic will also continue to enhance its relationships with other providers and industry partners.