THERE are three things Wayne McNee looks for in a job – complexity, challenges and science.
As the chief executive of Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC) he is in charge of overseeing the nation’s herds and their reproductive performance so deals with all three daily.
Add to that about 700 staff throughout New Zealand, increasing to 2500 during the peak dairy breeding season and LIC’s offices in Britain, Ireland, Australia and the United States and agents in South America and South Africa and he has plenty to keep him occupied.
He describes LIC as a really important business for the NZ dairy industry. The company develops 80% of the genetics for dairy in the country as well as providing software to over 90% of farmers.
“Coming from a science background, the role at LIC appealed to me because science is at its core,” he says.
“We supply hardware, we’ve got data scientists and its dairy, which I believe is the heart of the NZ primary industries and therefore the heart of the NZ economy. The role and the company were a perfect fit for me.”
At LIC’s annual meeting he spoke about the future of genetics and what is happening in the field.
“The main area of focus we have been investing in is genomics.
“We have invested about $40 million into genomics over the past 15 years and we’re still investing a lot.
“Genomics is a core way of speeding up genetic gains and identifying particular traits from the gene of animals and breeding from those rather than using traditional sire proving, which we do as well.”
LIC is working with research partners to use a technology called CRISPR – clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats – that enables scientists to go in and get at a gene to remove harmful traits.
There are two aspects to the work. One is to try to reduce negative health traits and illnesses. The other is to look at things like methane and nitrate production in dairy cows.
“We need to see if there are things we could do here to reduce the impact of dairy on the environment long term and there is a potential genetic opportunity in that.
“It’s clearly something that is important to the industry and to the wider public.
“We are doing a lot of work in making cows more efficient but clearly we need to be doing more.”
Though there’s a range of other systems that can do the same thing the technology is not legal beyond the laboratory in NZ.
“It’s legal in the United States and other countries so we can do the initial research here but the main research will have to be done offshore.”
He admits he is passionate about the work and passionate about the industry in general.
“I just like working with the range of people we have, the scientists and software developers and the operational team. It’s a really good, diverse business.”
His interest in the primary sector also has a lot to do with his background, growing up on his parent’s farm near Oamaru.
“My father had a small sheep and beef farm and owned a couple of sawmills. The farm was sold several years ago.
“I was definitely brought up in a farming environment although I never milked cows until much later. And I was also a member of Young Farmers so that’s really where my passion for farming originally came from.”
Despite growing up on a sheep and beef unit he knows cows and admits his favourite breed is the Kiwicross. He learnt to milk cows in his father-in-law’s rotary shed at Miranda on the Firth of Thames and at one stage he and his wife Natalie were part owners in the farm, which has since been sold.
He graduated from Otago University with a pharmacy degree then did a diploma in clinical pharmacy.
He went on to hold a number of interesting and challenging roles including being chief executive at the Ministry of Fisheries and director-general of the Ministry for Primary Industries before taking up his LIC job in 2013.
Leaving the government sector was not difficult and is not a move he regrets.
At the time he was working for MPI where he had led the merger between the Ministry of Fisheries and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry as well as the Food Safety Authority.
“While it was a hugely challenging role and very complex in the combination of biosecurity and food safety and all the agricultural policy at work plus forestry and fisheries, it was still a very interesting role.
“But having done a long stint in government I wanted to do something else.
“It was then I decided I’d prefer to work in the private sector. The complexity of the LIC business and the science aspect appealed to me.”
He, Natalie and their two young daughters live in Auckland. He also has a 25-year-old son from his first marriage.
“They actually help me with my work-life balance because I enjoy spending time with them and I certainly try not to work any more on the weekends, which I used to do.
“But it would be nice to spend more time with them and I am working on that.”
He commutes between Auckland and the LIC office in Hamilton, usually leaving home on Monday morning and returning on Thursday evening.
Under his leadership LIC has implemented many new strategies including SPACE in 2017. SPACE uses satellite images to measure pasture, sending detailed reports directly to farmers by email.
“The project is part of LIC’s ongoing commitment to developing products and services that improve productivity and decision-making for farmers.”
McNee is also the chairman of Agrigate GP, a joint venture between Fonterra Farm Source and LIC. Agrigate has the sole purpose of providing value to farmers by bringing dairy industry data together in one place.
He says the great thing about LIC is it’s looking at dairy and bringing together the information systems and genetics, the hardware and the whole package for the dairy farmer.
“It’s about being able to analyse the effect of changes on individual cows and also on population.
“We’re really focused on improving our science work and investing in that and we’re starting to think about and working on where the opportunities in the new gene-editing technology are. We need to be looking at it and understanding it.”
He says gene editing is also being looked at as a pest management strategy.
McNee believes when people see the potential benefits and how it could be used in NZ, they will understand how it can be applied.
“We are talking five or maybe 10 years but you’ve got to do the work to understand it first.”
He says he is proud of the work LIC is doing and to have led LIC to transform its business over the last couple of years since the dairy downturn
“We are continuing to grow our business in a market where cow numbers are not growing as well as growing our international business in genetics and technology.
“The LIC team in NZ and across the world are great. I am proud of our research and development and product development teams and the work they do. And the fact that we are growing”
On his to-do list is to continue to deliver the company’s transformation, which, as well as growing the revenue and profit of LIC, will speed up its product development and speed to market of new technology.
“I also want to continue to grow our international business, which helps make LIC more aware of development of technology internationally and the opportunities and risks for our business.”
And what of the perfect cow?
“The perfect cow depends on the type of dairy system.
“If you want a dairy cow that will produce high-quality, high-solids milk efficiently in a grass-based system, LIC has the best cows in the world.”
