Red tape is something businesses see as a cost, a burden and often plain dumb.
While over-regulation is not healthy for society or business, Taratahi's underpinning message to our students is that compliance is about "Doing the right thing".
We want them to learn that good, well-informed management covers off compliance and it doesn't become seen as an extra burden.
Taratahi is signing up to the Welfarm system which centres around an on-line dashboard that allows farmers to input a host of on farm data, and benchmark it with data from other farms from around the country.
Under Welfarm, animal welfare is measured by body condition scores - tail scoring, lameness, antibiotic, anti-inflammatory and painkiller use as well as in-calf rates, cow mortality, heifers reared and cows culled.
Students quickly begin to understand that a farm is part of one wide ecosystem
Taratahi believes the high tech dashboard is not only a great way to measure welfare of our animals but it ends up being a very good tool to understand what issues can impact on production, cost and most importantly profit.
We are also looking to trial it on our sheep and beef farms.
It is a no-brainer that a healthy contented animal is going to provide better returns.
It is good management in its essence.
That is the beauty of the Welfarm system - it provides data about animal welfare, which in turn helps us improve farm profitability.
Building this important, leading edge software package into the learning our students engage with will let them see the benefits of good animal husbandry.
Every day in the media there is a discussion or story on water use. It has become one of the big issues New Zealand is grappling with.
Again, the importance of good data to be able to make well-informed decisions is essential for good management and to avoid compliance being an added extra.
Taratahi is of course required to comply with a range of environmental standards like everyone else. While setting yourself up for databased management takes a big effort up front it is worth it in the results.
We view our environmental compliance the same way as our animal welfare compliance. It provides us with a benchmark for good environmental performance on the one hand with the compliance being part of business as usual. In turn it is increasingly part of the story we can give to our markets.
Even more importantly, it allows us to educate our students about good environmental management being good for the business. Along with this, we teach them the concepts of care and stewardship of the land that we need to apply to our physical environment. Students quickly begin to understand that a farm is part of one wide ecosystem and a big benefit from looking after the land is profitability.
Taratahi, like all other businesses, must comply with the new Health and Safety Act. We have worked hard to make these changes and make them a business as usual part of the work of farming. Again, we see having good data at the centre of what we do.
We have invested in a software package that allows staff and students to log observations, near misses and accidents with ease. This is not an imposition - good health and safety is good business practice. Accidents cost money, damage people's lives and undermine performance. In other words, they do not help farms to be profitable.
Our students will learn by using the Farm IQ system on the farm.
A simple compliance tool that can be accessed on a smart phone provides students with an easy way to log risks and hazards and importantly - good practice on the farm. Health and Safety becomes part of their DNA and is viewed positively and as a routine behaviour.
Our students, through our programmes, are being exposed to not only the obligations of compliance but also the benefits that can be gained from harvesting data.
As we weave the reasons and benefits of health and safety, environmental monitoring and animal welfare into our programmes at Taratahi students soon understand and embrace the philosophy that compliance is about "doing the right thing".
They get to understand the good compliance is part of good management and making the farm more profitable. Our aim is for them to take that attitude with them when they graduate, helping a positive shift in how compliance is viewed.