Northern region's farmers surveyed

A DairyNZ and Northland Dairy Development Trust survey aims to identify what farmers need to know to consider switching to once-a-day milking.

DairyNZ and the Northland Dairy Development Trust want Northland farmers to take part in a survey they are conducting to improve advice they provide to those considering a switch to once-a-day milking.

The survey, launched earlier this month, asks the region's 1000 dairy farmers to rank in order of importance eight questions about once-a-day (OAD) covering cows, feeding, profitability, environment, people and how these topics relate.

The survey asks farmers how they identify the best cows for OAD, should OAD farmers use different types of feed and what changes in production and income could farmers expect by moving to OAD? Other questions range from changes OAD would bring to infrastructure to assessing the factors which would influence switching, such as seeing OAD work successfully on another farm or being more comfortable about the risks involved.

DairyNZ Northland regional leader Chris Neill said the survey had attracted quite a lot of interest, much of it centred on the profitability of OAD and its impact on herd health and farmer wellbeing.

While the response had been positive, more farmers needed to take part in the survey for it to provide insights into the specific advice they required to make an informed choice to switch to OAD. Mr Neill said it was hoped participant numbers would have increased sufficiently for data analysis to begin in a fortnight or so.

"OAD suits many Northland farms where factors such as contour, walking distance, milking time and labour availability impact the profitability and sustainability of the business," he said.

DairyNZ and the development trust were holding the survey to "get some science" around OAD, so they could provide sound Northland-based advice to dairy farmers in the region weighing up whether to halve their herds' daily march to the milking shed.

OAD can significantly reduce the environmental impact of dairying. Northland Regional Council farm monitoring manager Dennis Wright said a switch to OAD could substantially reduce water use and dairy farm effluent.

Council monitoring comparing water use on an OAD farm milking 320 cows and typical volumes used on farms which milking twice each day in 2015-17 found the average daily water use at the OAD dairy over the 2015-16 season was 41 per cent lower than the industry average for TAD milking.

The average daily use for the 2016-17 season was 53 per cent lower than the TAD average. On a full season basis the total water use for the 2015-16 season was almost 3 million litres less than the industry TAD average while the 2016-17 season total was 3.3 million litres lower than the industry average, Mr Wright said.

See the survey on: https://www.surveymonkey.net/r/northlandoad