No. 8 Wire: Prime lamb plan will boost efficiency

The Prime off Mum plan takes advantage of early schedule pricing.

New Zealand's largest red meat genetics company is encouraging farmers to get behind a plan to get more prime lambs straight to the works off their mothers and in turn increase farm profitability.

Focus Genetics' Prime off Mum plan is open to all New Zealand sheep farmers. Registrations opened on Monday at primeoffmum.co.nz

The challenge will give participating farmers an opportunity to find out how they are tracking against others with similar land classes.

Personal details are confidential but the combined information gathered will allow each farmer to see where they are at, and also help identify opportunities where they could improve their Prime off Mum numbers.

Focus Genetics sheep and deer programme manager Dr Richard Lee says Prime Off Mum is a very transparent farm measure that can have a significant impact for farmers -- in terms of hitting early schedule pricing and, more importantly, freeing up feed for other classes of livestock.

Together this has the opportunity to increase farm returns with higher sale prices as well as increased on-farm efficiencies, Lee said.

"Our focus is to get farmers thinking about the levers they can pull to influence this, with a big driver being lambing percentage as this dictates how many ewes can go to the terminal ram."

At the end of the season all farmers will be given a report.

Tough times tackled

DairyNZ has launched a campaign to help farmers survive a tough season brought on by a low milk price and drought.

More than 70 farmers from 30 farms nationwide will host events as part of the Tactics for Tight Times campaign, designed to help farmers survive the season and build resilience for the future.

DairyNZ chief executive Tim Mackle says: "The milk price hit a six-year low in December and dry conditions have exacerbated the situation, forcing many farmers to make some pretty tough decisions, especially as they look to set themselves up for next season."

DairyNZ is pulling together research, data and lessons learned from similar seasons to support farmers with their decisions about health and wellbeing, pasture cover, feed, production, stock health, and financial management.

Event details, profiles of the Tactics for Tight Times farmers (being completed over the next week) and practical resources can be found at dairynz.co.nz/tactics.

Tighter controls urged

Rural Women New Zealand is concerned about the fruit fly incursion, the fourth in three years. "The downstream effects are widespread, affecting the growers, their families and communities, both socially and economically," says Fiona Gower, Rural Women's environment spokeswoman.

Rural Women backs the call by Horticulture NZ to bring in 100 per cent passenger bag x-rays at all international airports, and for MPI to invest in a better border control system.

"In our manifesto we recommend better controls at the border as we see containment as a more cost-effective strategy.

"Growers take pride in their worldwide reputation for quality produce that has been built over many years. To have this reputation undermined because of a failure to protect our borders is devastating."

Delegates go online This year's Deer Industry conference will be broadcast live on the internet, with viewers able to ask questions of speakers in real time, using a comment thread, email or tweet.

The conference is the industry's 40th and the second to be livestreamed on internetbased Rural TV. Keynote speakers at last year's conference attracted an online audience of 1000, five times the number of those who attended the main conference sessions.

"We expect viewer numbers will be up again this year," Deer Industry chief executive Dan Coup says.

"More farmers and others involved in the industry have heard about the service and are now comfortable watching TV online.

"It enables us to communicate with our stakeholders live, without any filters, wherever they are in the world. They, in turn, can see and hear the speakers respond to questions and comments from the physical and online audience."

Interviews with sponsors during breaks in the conference programme add value for the firms which help fund such events.

The 2015 conference is in Napier from May 26 to 28.

Fair solution reached

Federated Farmers is pleased the Commerce Commission has reached settlements with the ANZ, ASB and Westpac over the sale of interest-rate swaps.

Federated Farmers president Dr William Rolleston says the agreements are a fair and equitable solution and it is time to move on.

"Some rural people signed on for interest-rate swaps as long ago as 2005, so for many customers it has been a long-running issue that now can be brought to a conclusion, with the three banks involved set to pay a total sum of $23.67 million to 256 eligible rural customers."

"While some farmers felt they were not adequately informed of the risks with swaps, it is important lessons are learned from this. Farmers must get independent advice and be sure they understand the implications of the contracts they sign. For their part, banks must not take that understanding for granted."

Rolleston says banks are an integral part of the farming community and have played a critical support role in adverse events.

Golden gift

Out of more than 600 applicants, University of Waikato master's student Sarah Appleby is one of just six students in the Asia-Pacific region to receive a Golden Key Graduate Scholar Scholarship, valued at $10,000.

Golden Key is an international honours society which invites members to join based on academic excellence.

Applications are limited to members of Golden Key and successful applicants must be able to demonstrate the usefulness of their research after graduation.

Appleby is based at AgResearch in Ruakura, testing the functional potential of bovine embryonic stem cells.

"Embryonic stem cells have really only been fully isolated from mice and rats, however scientists here have developed a method that isolates bovine cells with similar properties to mice and rat embryonic stem cells," she says.

Tests have shown these cells perform well in the lab, so my work will be focused on seeing if they improve cloning efficiency.

"The type of research I'm doing means I'm often in the lab on the weekend, and fitting in a part-time job would have been really stressful. Having the scholarship means there is one less thing to worry about."

Appleby was awarded the David Johnstone Charitable Trust Scholarship in 2010, the Anne Shannon Undergraduate Scholarship in 2011 and the University of Waikato Postgraduate Fees Scholarship last year.

During her undergraduate studies, she was top in her class in statistics for science, and an earth sciences and Bryant Hall Academic Excellence awards winner.

Appleby, from Whangamata, began her studies at the University of Waikato in 2010, majoring in biological sciences.

She finished with an A+ average in 2013 before beginning her master's.

She had two placements at AgResearch during her undergraduate degree, spending three months at the Ruakura campus and seven months at the Invermay campus, just outside Dunedin.

She has a particular interest in reproductive biology.

"I really enjoyed the type of work I was exposed to in the reproductive technologies team," says Sarah.

"I also had jokingly said when I finished high school that in 10 years' time I'd be working on curing the common cold, so this sort of medical/biological application research has always been something I've been interested in."