Friday, March 29, 2024

Experienced Dutchman to head Fonterra’s China unit

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Fonterra has put its China dairy farming operations into a stand-alone business unit, with full financial and operational accountability, and has appointed an interim managing director.
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Experienced Dutch dairy cattle manager and geneticist Henk Bles will spend six months as interim head of the grandly named International Farming Ventures while Fonterra recruits his successor.

The unit consists overwhelmingly so far of the China farm “hubs” part-way through development.

The first Hebei province hub comprises five farms totalling 15,000 cows of New Zealand origin and produces 150 million litres of milk annually.

The similarly sized second hub, in Ying County, Shanxi province, is under development and is expected to begin production in the second half of this year.

Fonterra’s ambition in China is to produce a billion litres of milk annually by 2020, which would take 100,000 cows at the present rate of production, fed on a cut-and-carry system of grass and crops.

Fonterra chief executive Theo Spierings has talked repeatedly of the multinational’s need for more “milk pools” outside NZ, to meet expectations of soaring dairy demand in developing countries.

From privately owned farms it processes 2b litres annually of Australian milk, 500m litres in Chile through wholly owned subsidiary Soprole and a further 2.6b litres in the joint venture with Nestle, Dairy Partners Americas, elsewhere in Latin America.

Fonterra’s NZ farmers are on track to produce about 15.5b litres in the current season, which has two months to run.

Bles has held leadership roles in the international dairy farming industry for more than 30 years, in dairy cattle, genetics, and dairy development. 

He established his own businesses, Bles Dairies Livestock BV and Bles Dairies Genetics/Eurostar Genes, and dairy development company The Friesian. 

He also holds an advisory position with Semex Global and is a board member of the Dutch Cattle Association.

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