Kiwi technology in Colombia's tropical high country

Dairy Solutionz chief executive Derek Fairweather.

A Waikato farm development company - Dairy Solutionz - will open a 117ha, 300-cow demonstration dairy in the Narino region of south Colombia tomorrow.

The farm has been developed for Corpoica - Colombia's equivalent of a New Zealand Crown research institute.

Solutionz chief executive Derek Fairweather said the company had been working in Colombia since 2012 and had been developing the demonstration farm for the past 18 months.

The $2 million development was funded by the Colombian Government and Corpoica.

It is first demonstration dairy farm using New Zealand technology in the high tropics - 2800m above sea level, at which altitude the weather is very similar to the Waikato where rye grass and clover flourish, according to Solutionz.

The farm, using New Zealand design and technology, is managed by Dairy Solutionz New New Zealand farm manager Paul Gibson.

Fairweather said it would serve to establish proof of profitability, which would lead to increased technology exports from New Zealand as these created value for Colombian farmers.

Corpoica chief executive Juan Lucas Restrepo said the farm would be a catalyst for change in the Narino region.

"We recognise New Zealand leadership in dairy technologies, breeding, pasture species and pasture management systems, and we need to prove that here in Narino," he said.

Fairweather said New Zealand cows and pasture thrived in the high tropics.

Dairy Solutionz is also active in Pakistan, Ecuador and America and has more than $20 million of tropical builds and a similar value of tropical projects under development.

In the Narino region, about 40 per cent of GDP comes from the dairy industry and about 400,000 families nationwide rely on the dairy industry for their livelihoods.

However, European free trade deals posed a threat to the local dairy sector, which would find it hard to compete once the current 33 per cent tariffs were lifted over the next 10 years, Fairweather said.