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CHRISTCHURCH - Leaving New Zealand to farm in Australia meant upheaval and heartache for Canterbury couple Maurice and Lyn Boyd.
Three years later, their decision to sell a jersey dairy stud and jump the Tasman has paid off - so well that the couple were recently held up as a case
study for farmers attending Australia's high-profile International Dairy Week Expo at Shepparton, Victoria.
The expo brings together Holstein, Jersey, brown Swiss, Ayreshire, Guernsey and Illawarra dairy breeders in the second-largest dairy showcase in the world.
Standing at the top of a class at Dairy Week is considered one of the highest achievements in the stud and show industry in Australia.
Doing it three years after dispersing a herd, shifting country, becoming familiar with a new farm and rebuilding stock numbers was acknowledged as a special feat.
The Boyds showed 12 head last week, and took home 34 ribbons and the premier breeder prize in the Jerseys.
The couple decided to leave New Zealand after dairy industry leaders changed the basis on which cattle were rated for breeding worth.
At the time, some breeders alleged that the new rating system favoured animals whose genes were offered through the Dairy Board's subsidiary, Livestock Improvement Corporation.
Under the new evaluation system, production and breeding indices were replaced by the terms "production worth" and "breeding worth."
"It was dramatic and sad to disperse our New Zealand herd," said Mrs Boyd, who is Australian but had farmed almost 20 years in New Zealand.
"It was all because of New Zealand's new index system.
"The breeding worth index devalued cattle unless they were Dairy Board-bred," she said.
"The dairy industry was a one-man band as we saw it, and we thought it was unhealthy to have no competition in an industry."
Showing had been killed in New Zealand, she said.
"Winning here [at Shepparton] has been amazing."
The couple traded 81ha and an overdraft in New Zealand for 198ha and no overdraft at Finley, in the Riverina area of New South Wales, three hours from Melbourne, where they milk 130 Jersey cows year-round. - NZPA
