Making the average move

While some people are poised and ready to move with whatever shift may be required, others struggle to attain the average present performance for their sector.
In dairying this can be for any manner of reasons. Some farmers may be recovering from a bad season or previous economic constraints, which meant they haven’t been able to move ahead as rapidly as they and their advisers would have wanted. Some may realise their skill level, either onfarm or dealing with the volatility surrounding the industry these days, is at its limit. Others may believe their future in the industry is limited as they near retirement so the exciting places where dairying can go are best left for the next generation.
The Beyond the Line of Sight conference, held in Auckland recently, was a great opportunity to hear from overseas experts on what innovations may be in store. These ranged from much more accurate monitoring of crop growth through to closer interactions between producer and consumer, very much based around each other’s needs rather than those of middlemen.
But for all this to happen there was the assumption of there being better connections in order that information flows were rapid, uninterrupted and easily able to be taken up by those with any interest in doing so.
Yet in New Zealand there are still places where Auckland’s Sky Tower can be clearly seen but there’s no broadband or cellphone reception. Some would say this is no bad thing, particularly those well away from the country’s largest city. But it remains a barrier, separating the haves and have-nots when it comes to running a business.
Dairying has a unique advantage when it comes to the industry’s co-operative ethos and the willingness of most participants to help each other. But there are those who still fall between the cracks when it comes to technology transfer. All the money farmers contribute to DairyNZ by way of levies counts for little if those who really need help aren’t receiving it. The industry as a whole has to move ahead, not just those with a burning desire to do so.
A low-payout year has motivated many organisations in the dairy industry to pool resources and really reach out. But what will happen when the payout recovers, as it surely will?
Technology transfer is a simple concept but the reality couldn’t be more complex. While some farmers take the opportunity to attend any local meeting, be it a discussion group, field day or annual meeting of a group they’re involved with, others find excuses not to go.
Back in the heyday of government involvement, there were agricultural advisers aplenty, information overload and all manner of subsidy for those needing a leg up. The free market and user-pays put much of that out of business, for better or worse. So farmers are often informed from a silo mentality of one entity putting its spin on a recent event or innovation. Proprietary companies have products to sell and services to offer.
Farmers can be excused for feeling bombarded at times, when they’re at their busiest onfarm and hard copy information sits stacked awaiting their attention.
So what’s the answer?
To be as ready as possible to make use of the futurists’ view, what NZ really needs in the short term is a more practical pathway to reach and retain the lofty targets set by Government for agriculture’s contribution to the economy. And a lot of that has to be based on bringing those in the bottom half of the dairy industry up to the average.
Prime Minister John Key hit the nail on the head at the opening of Waikato Milking Systems’ new plant in Hamilton in early October. He put forward the perspective of what the sheep industry had been able to achieve in reducing stock numbers but boosting per-head performance to equal its previous production.
For too long the emphasis of many dairy farmers has been on putting more cows on more land rather than putting more milksolids in the vat from the animals already in their herds. That may have made perfect business sense but the present payout environment may well have caused a rethink. Farmers have sent their low-producing cows to the works, with the intention of getting the best possible production from those remaining.
Many have rethought feed budgets, too. They’re focusing back on grass and making the most of every blade they can grow.
But is the skill level there for them to use it in the most efficient way possible?
This is where the older farmer has a definite advantage; working on principles they’ve honed over many seasons. There is a real danger of some of that expertise getting lost, particularly with the very human reaction of seizing the new in the expectation it will be much better than that which went before.
Of course advances need to be welcomed, innovation applauded and adaptation showcased where it is shown to be definitely delivering the goods. But sometimes the tried and true really is just that.
And sometimes all that’s missing is a method to get that message out there.