{"id":13439,"date":"2015-01-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-06T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.farmersweekly.co.nz\/winter-milk-needs-thought\/"},"modified":"2015-01-07T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-01-06T11:00:00","slug":"winter-milk-needs-thought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farmersweekly.co.nz\/news\/winter-milk-needs-thought\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter milk needs thought"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

It is questionable for farms that need to invest a lot of money to winter milk cows sustainably anyway, but particularly in a low payout year, DairyNZ north Waikato regional manager Phil Irvine says.<\/p>\n

Fonterra had plenty of interest in recent months from North Waikato farmers who applied to sign up for a three-year winter milk contract starting in 2016-17.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey definitely need to think things through and consider how well they\u2019re set up with infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other key for farmers would be to source feed at a suitable price to fill the gaps, because grass wasn\u2019t enough during winter, he said.<\/p>\n

The winter milk premium, currently $1.40\/kg milksolids (MS) less transport adjustments, would increase from May 2016 to $1.90\/kg MS.<\/p>\n

The premium could be attractive, but generally the cost of producing milk was higher without the spring grass growth.<\/p>\n

Not wanting to milk through the dry summers was definitely a motivation for North Waikato farmers, but farmers calving in a very dry February and March in the past two years had found it difficult as well, Irvine said.<\/p>\n

Farmers had to think the decision through and make the change for the right reasons, he said.<\/p>\n

Regardless, farmers who switched to autumn calving had to be good operators. If farmers were struggling with their spring calving, switching to autumn calving wouldn\u2019t fix their issues, he said.<\/p>\n

For Eureka 50% sharemilker Dan Hinton, the major reason he was switching to autumn calving next season was because it suited his preferred high-input system better.<\/p>\n

Traditionally farmers sought to match feed supply and demand, minimising demand for supplementary feeds. Hinton said that was now less of a necessity with the better infrastructure and variety of supplements available.<\/p>\n

Now with better infrastructure and available supplements, that didn\u2019t matter because farmers could put in feed at any time of the year, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI overlaid my supply-demand curve with my feed quality curve and when you can put in the feed where the deficits are it just matches better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hinton calved 100 cows in autumn last year as a trial, but he would advise other farmers not to dabble in split calving because it got difficult with mating cows during spring calving and meeting different feed requirements.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t keep a foot in both camps. That\u2019s what I did and it did my head in.\u201d<\/p>\n

The farm didn\u2019t need a feedpad at the moment because the larger area allocated to the lactating cows during the winter took away the pugging issues that springing dry cows caused, he said.<\/p>\n

His herd was fed predominately on grass and 600kg palm kernel\/cow, with an extra protein supplement when necessary.<\/p>\n

He traditionally grew plantain as a summer crop, but would consider growing 17-20ha of fodder beet or kale in future, he said.<\/p>\n

Farmers making the transition should make sure they had low-priced feed contracts, winter and summer crops planted and good advice from a non-biased nutritionist.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of it comes down to good planning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fonterra was still working through applications and would make decisions on suppliers depending on milk volume and distance from the Waitoa plant, Fonterra supply programme director Lisa Payne said.<\/p>\n

The growing demand for UHT products would ensure security for those farmers changing their farm systems and investing in infrastructure to milk cows through winter, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need a regular supply of winter milk for our local and international markets and there is increasing demand for UHT in Asia. We\u2019ve invested $120 million on this UHT plant so that gives the indication of the importance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new farmers signed up would aim to fill the plant\u2019s processing capacity of 100m litres of UHT product a year.<\/p>\n

The plant\u2019s five UHT processing lines produced 250 tonnes, or 250,000 litres, of UHT product every day, along with a range of milk products and functional cream products used in food services.<\/p>\n

Its technology allowed the plant to produce 24,000 milk packs every hour on each line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Waikato farmers signing up to supply winter milk to the new Fonterra UHT plant at Waitoa could find it a tough transition with a low forecast payout if they need to build new infrastructure.\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":13440,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t