A former agricultural science leader has delivered a broadside at what he sees as a lack of objectivity in the science structure, saying there is little technology transfer and it is impossible to separate “good science from company spin”. Jock Allison, the former director of the Invermay Research Centre, told the Clutha Agricultural Development Board annual meeting last week that scientists no longer talked to farmers and the competitive funding model for science did not allow for research results to be passed to farmers reports The ODT.

“Often, useful technologies are not promoted to industry as there is no financial allocation to ensure that happens,” he said. “The research bodies are just ticking off the contracts and moving on to apply for the next two- or three-year period of funding.” Dr Allison was also scathing about the impact on technology transfer of crown research institutions entering commercial alliances in which companies invest in and own the results.

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Agriculture Minister David Carter yesterday received an earful from Marlborough farmers outraged at agriculture being included in the emissions trading scheme (ETS). The farmers waited for Mr Carter to finish a speech about the scheme at Meadowbank Station in Taylor Pass before unleashing a barrage of questions and statements reports The Marlborough Express. Mr Carter said he did not believe that climate change was “rubbish”. Over the past 20 years there were a “hell of a lot” more emissions of greenhouse gases which produced a “human-induced” effect, he said.

Marlborough farmer Warren Taylor said farmers needed to stop arguing about the science and whether the scheme should go ahead and instead try to use it to their advantage. “We can bitch and moan about it whether it’s getting warm or not; let’s make a buck out of it.” Marlborough Federated Farmers president Geoff Evans said the farming sector would not be able to compete in international markets because of a “perpetually” increasing ETS tax while foreign competitors received subsidies.

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The outgoing AgResearch chief executive, Andy West, says the failed merger bid is the biggest regret of his six-year stint at the CRI.West wants a future government to “definitely take a system-wide view of universities and CRIs”. He believes the merger of AgResearch and Lincoln would have been “a bold move” for NZ. It was mooted by the two parties in November 2008 and a public announcement was made in March last year.

However, six months later the talks were called off and both parties decided that a partnership would deliver more benefits than a full amalgamation.West says the merger process was derailed by the global financial crisis.“We were funding the merger with our own resources,” he told Rural News.

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University of Otago researchers analysing quad bike driver behaviour have found vital new information that could help reduce the continuing high rate of accidents and deaths on the vehicles. In a study involving 30 farm workers using quad bikes in South Otago, researchers at the University’s School of Physiotherapy found that those with a tendency to steer uphill, instead of downhill while traversing a left-facing slope, had the most accidents reports voxy.co.

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.”

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NZ agriculture has as little as five years before large-scale intensive farming in South America, western China and central Asia erodes its cost advantage in producing bulk commodities, according to accountant KPMG. Their Agribusiness Agenda report observes that these regions have the benefit of lower-cost land and labour and less complex regulatory regimes. “In addition, they are traditionally closer to key markets, enabling them to deliver food to the customer at a significantly lower cost than a competing new farmer or grower in NZ could achieve,” KPMG agribusiness chairman Ross Buckley said in Stuff.

“This gives NZ companies a short buffer, maybe as little as five years, before low-cost regions are producing bulk commodity products in significant volumes and undercutting NZ’s pricing in our traditional commodity markets.” Because of this, it was now time to start revising industry structures, practices and products to give NZ produce better value well in advance of large-volume commodities from these new suppliers.

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The outcome of condition feeding trials will give farmers plenty to chew over. DairyNZ principal animal scientist John Roche, of Hamilton, has just released the results of condition feeding trials reports The Taranaki Daily. It’s particularly relevant for farmers on the dry Taranaki coastal strip between Okato and Manaia, where supplements are being heavily used to compensate for bare paddocks as winter approaches.

Dr Roche says the amount of harvested or purchased feed required is less than was thought. The recommended pasture to achieve a body condition score (BCS) unit was 200-220kg of dry matter equivalent per hectare and that was based on liveweight gain in pasture-fed lambs in Britain in the 1960s. “That’s how little information we had and, to be honest, I didn’t believe it,” he says. “So we carried out trials on dairy cows last year, funded by the Sustainable Farming Fund and DairyNZ.

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Yellow bristle grass, a highly invasive pasture weed with no effective controls and a major financial impact, is appearing in Taranaki dairy paddocks. It’s a pest plant horror story and so far there’s little anyone can do about it, other than try intensive pasture renovation over three seasons reports the Taranaki Daily.

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.

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Beef and Lamb NZ, wants to use the farm, and half a dozen like it, for its demonstration farm programme. Richard Wakelin, general manager of the organisation’s farm section, said the new programme would sit alongside the existing monitor farm programme. Mr Wakelin said he hoped the new programme would be in place by October 1 after the Beef & Lamb NZboard had decided what should be included reports Stuff. The board would be asking “what are the key big hits that we need to strategy look at?”.

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.

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A 100gm serving of NZ lamb consumed in Britain carries a carbon “cost” equivalent to nearly 2kg of carbon dioxide, new research shows.The “carbon footprint” for NZ lamb eaten in Britain has been estimated as equivalent to 1.9kg of carbon dioxide, for each 100gm serving of lamb – 80 percent of that generated by farmers and their livestock on-farm reports Stuff.

Just 3 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions came from processing, and 5 percent from transport, with the remaining 12 percent down to retailers and consumers.The study by AgResearch and released today by meat companies, is the first published carbon footprint to cover the entire life cycle from farm, through to cooking and eating the meat, and the disposal of waste and sewage.

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AgResearch is urging North Island farmers to continue ensuring that their cattle are protected against facial eczema and to monitor their herds for the serious animal health and welfare problem. Facial eczema costs the dairy industry anywhere between $9.6M and $95.2M per year, depending on outbreaks and weather, and the impact on income and animals can be limited by using zinc protection.

“Even with some weather changes now, farmers still need to take facial eczema particularly seriously,” said AgResearch Senior Scientist Dr Chris Morris who is part of a team operating a MAF Sustainable Farming Fund project to monitor zinc protection. “Zinc sulphate is a water-trough treatment which should be effective and easily applied. Facial eczema risk can vary greatly from herd to herd, and even from paddock to paddock, so it is good to be prepared even when the risk in a region appears to be low.”

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