Do they have mud on their boots?

01-03-2010 | Contributor

Farm advice is a different thing from farm advisers, who perform a useful function.

We receive a lot of advice from well-meaning people who don't give the impression of ever having had much mud on their boots.

So much has been written about the McKenzie Basin dairy proposal that I am reluctant to enter the ranks.

There are, however, one or two points worth making.

Cows - or any domestic animals - don't perform well, produce well or make profit for their owners if they are not well fed and adequately sheltered.

So the scurrilous, emotive clip shown recently on TV One of "factory farmed" cows starved and mistreated was a pathetic attempt to stir up misinformed emotions. There is no call for the SPCA to be concerned.

Some years back, one of my less successful overseas visits on behalf of an engineering company to the Sudan with an Egyptian, Professor Khishin, reminds me a little of the McKenzie proposal. The Sudanese government proposed to invest in dairying. There was almost no experience, but they wanted initially a 5000-cow dairy.

I was appalled at the thought of the difficulties, which were obviously greater than just our company building the infrastructure.

I suggested a 500-cow operation, plus a reconstitution plant for imported milk powder, but this was not well-received. I did enjoy seeing the historic parts of Khartoum and the junction of the two Niles - but as a consultant my stocks were low.

Later events in the Sudan proved that it was fortunate we didn't progress.

The point of this story relates to the proposed 18,000 cows, albeit in three blocks. There is a Canterbury operation, housed, with 2000 cows. The owner has said that he can operate successfully at a milksolids price of $4.80 and above. I find this a fairly scary figure.

The cost of energy is likely to rise faster than the medium-term price for milksolids. Overseas generally, 2000 cows is seen as an optimum size, so the proposed three 6000-cow units will need to be carefully considered even though the management talent would be very different to that in the Sudan.

I am sure that those involved in the proposed scheme have done their sums and will have one or more fall back positions - it will be interesting to find out what those are.

In a different field, we have read recently about the Turners and Growers' bid to offer competition in the export marketing of kiwifruit. I thought that Zespri has been doing a good job, with support from growers. Competition keeps exporters on their toes and is generally seen as being a good thing. Yet when we last had exporters competing in this field we found that prices to growers were driven down.

Keeping quality high and standardising products in a commodity product is essential, and the kiwifruit board, then Zespri, have achieved this. But because the product is seen in the marketplace as being of standard quality, competing export companies tend to compete on price alone. The result - as occurred some years ago - is to reduce prices to growers.

In partnership with others, late in the 1980s I proposed a move away from absolute dependence on the lamb grading system. Carcases were being traded, and a grading system which ensured uniformity caused exporters to compete overly on price alone - with resulting under-cutting to make sales. British importers liked the system. The industry moved to much greater added value, so the problem diminished, but it would be naïve to think it no longer has significance. This option is not available to kiwifruit growers although work is being done on new varieties.

Roger Marshall, Rangitikei.

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