He’s just returned from six and a half years working in that country where about 700 of its 12,500 dairy farmers have adopted what they describe as the New Zealand system. The majority of British dairy farmers strive to get maximum yield from large-framed Holstein Friesian cows calving all year round. Many high producing, well-run systems yield between 9000 and 10,000 litres/cow/year but with a cost of production close to the milk price, there’s very little room to move, especially where reinvestment in plant and machinery is concerned.
DairyCo, the industry levy body, conducts an annual farmer intention survey and recently reported about 21 milk producers are set to leave the industry each week in the UK. A sense of uncertainty is reflected in the fact that 35% of survey participants had no long-term plans for the continuity of their businesses, up from 25% last year. A concerning fact is that exiting farmers are not generally being replaced by young entrepreneurs, and are instead changing land use to cropping, or leasing the farm and continuing to collect the single farm payment, a subsidy based on land held, of about £79 an acre.
Typically UK dairy farms calve all year round and provide liquid milk to the local market. Most milk processors demand a level supply and have penalties in place to encourage this. These herds are generally housed with little grazing, especially of freshly calved cows, although dry and stale cows might be used at the end of lactation doing some form of clean up. Farms are shut up in the autumn with some grazed by sheep over winter, then there are two or three cuts of silage before cows go near it.
Cows are brought inside to prepare for calving and put on a ration to prepare for lactation. Grass in the form of silage becomes the carrier to all sorts of concentrated feeds via a mixer wagon, and in some cases fresh grass is cut and delivered to the cows. Grain is fed in the dairy based on individual cow yield, or a total mixed ration system is given to the cows, Both options place demands on machinery and manpower.
The small group who have adopted the Kiwi system are focused on good pasture management, spring or autumn block calving, paddock tracks and the NZ cow often from an LIC bull.
In the late 1990s, grazing with traditional Holsteins was not successful with high losses and empty rates. Lessons were learned leading to the adoption of the NZ cow proven on grass. But there were limitations, with few NZ-type herds available. So farmers tried to breed from existing stock or bought surplus young stock from other early adopters to create herds of heifers sourced from all around the country.
Another significant challenge was rolling cows around from all year calving to seasonal – involving either a long lactation or a long dry spell and incurring significant cost to change the system.
Many farmers had a spring and an autumn block before eventually going all spring or all autumn. The transition takes about six years so it’s a serious commitment.
Some farmers took the plunge, sold complete herds of Holsteins and sourced NZ-bred heifers from around Britain and Ireland resulting in a healthy trade in rising one-year bulling heifers. The NZ stock proved to be more fertile, have better milksolids (MS) production and better legs and feet than their Holstein counterparts.
Production from traditional Holstein herds ranges from 330 to 460kg MS from up to 800 kilojoules of concentrate/grain pellets. Weaning them off this level of supplementary feed is unnecessary with a grass-first policy and most farmers feed a degree of concentrate in the dairy.
Most grass-based farmers in the UK have first-hand experience of the NZ system having visited or worked here and find the simplicity of the system a major drawcard.
Most regularly use platemeters, measure their grass, do feed budgets and plan the season with cover targets much the same as their NZ contemporaries.
What they’re achieving is raising eyebrows in the industry. The use of concentrates is lower than under the conventional British system, and they are making significant savings by not housing cows or out-wintering on fodder beet and kale. Most have sold their mixer wagons.
Annual growth ranges from 14-16 tonnes drymatter (DM) in the south and areas influenced by the Gulf Stream, to 9-12t DM in the midlands and areas further east with lower rainfall. There is no irrigation in a country which has its fair share of green droughts. The growing season is February to November.
Cows don’t graze grass in the winter because little or no growth means a winter rotation does not work. England has been free of snow in the main dairying areas for three out of the last six years.
The spring rotation planner is used early on with 20-25 day rounds the norm through most of the season.
Compliance costs are significant but there is widespread acceptance that they are essential. Farms within the nitrate vulnerable zones (NVZ) must have 90 days effluent storage and must not apply slurry between the winter months of October and January.
Herd fertility is generally good across the NZ systems, with the best empty rates at 5-7%, most around 12-15% and during periods of change up to 25%. This contrasts with the typical conception rate of Holstein herds of 35% to first service.
Inducing is not illegal but frowned upon and rarely seen. The use of CIDRs is also seen by grass-based farmers as a contributor to poor fertility and avoided where possible.
A strong emphasis is placed on condition score targets over the course of the year.
Most farm workers in Britain, who often are employed by the same family for their whole career, do not live onfarm but in neighbouring villages.
A farm owner has the right to sell off any block of land of any size but the purchaser is unable to do anything other than visit and farm it.
It’s difficult to progress but farm workers can progress to herdsmen and in some cases farm manager – similar to sharemilking in terms of responsibility but without a financial stake in the business.
A positive development in the last six or so years has been the development of contract farming arrangements, best described as a cross between equity partnerships and sharemilking.
But British banks will not take the value of cows as security so getting started is challenging.
NZ-type cows in the UK are worth between £900 and £1200 with culls anywhere from £300 to £500 so very few cows get sold as empty.
Getting a cow in calf that might fall outside one farm’s calving pattern is still very marketable to the all year round calvers, turning a £400 cull into a £1000 asset. Each animal has a passport that remains with it for its life.
The cost of production last season for farmers on a NZ system was about 22 pence/litre with a milk price of about 32p/l. A 300-cow herd producing 380kg MS or 4270l/cow would generate a surplus of £128,000, and a single farm payment of about £20,000.
The cost of production for the high yielders was closer to 30p/l, leaving a very poor margin.
British farmers running the NZ system are focused on generating cash as many lease their farms and so don’t have an asset to sell apart from their cows. They are looking for and taking opportunities, converting land with regrassing programmes, building tracks, creating paddocks and building NZ-style dairies often using Kiwi builders.
For these pioneers there will now be no other way of farming.
