New ideas for survival in dairy

Farmers in Otago and Southland will get to see a range of ways farms are managing winter conditions at DairyNZ's first ever "˜Wintering Systems Tour' series, which runs from June 16-18. DairyNZ's South Otago consulting officer Caroline Hadley said farmers will get to see the pros and cons of wintering options at each of the three tours.  "This is a chance to see the costs and benefits of wintering cows on pads, Herd Homes, wintering barns or on winter crop. The information passed on will give people a better idea of the capital set-up costs, operating costs and environmental implications of each system." Alistair Megaw's Tapanui dairy farm is the start point for the first tour on June 16. The Megaws run a system which uses a wintering barn. Farmers will get to see a variety of systems in action on the other stops on the tour, which include the use of sawdust pads, herd homes, paddocks with gravel bases and grazing on crops.The second tour starts from the Telford Polytechnic farm in Balclutha on June 17, where cows are wintered on a kale crop. This day tour takes in systems running covered pads, Herd Homes and a system which uses fodderbeet.The Southland Demo Farm in Wallacetown is the starting point for the final tour on June 18. Cows here are wintered on fodderbeet and swede crops. After lunch farmers will visit a farm which is on sandier country and is feeding baleage and pasture and a farm which is milking 1700 cows over winter using housing. For an academic, Lincoln University lecturer Marvin Pangborn makes a pretty good dairy farmer.US born, he came to NZ as an exchange student in 1975, married a NZer and returned to Oregon as a rural banker. But as a third generation farmer who "˜never wanted or planned to do anything else' he arrived back in NZ in 1987 and took a 500-cow sharemilking contract in Rakaia reports The Rural News. Now he owns a 675-cow farm at Rakaia and is converting another 500-cow farm nearby as well as lecturing in farm management. His experiences therefore give him a pretty good handle on his workshop topic at the 11th annual South Island Dairy Event (SIDE) at Lincoln University June 22-24. He will tell farmers the importance of financial management and cost cutting in a volatile economic environment. And as a farmer bringing in a new conversion at a time of rising costs and falling payout, he knows that cost control is one of the most important aspects of financial management. "˜Farmers have to get more businesslike,' he says. "˜The cost of production is the key measurement because without that you don't know what costs you need to cut. I will be telling farmers that a low cost of production is the key to survival.'He wants farmers to work out their break even figure, including interest, tax and drawings. His is a payout of $4.05, anything over that is profit.