{"id":19999,"date":"2016-07-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-07-17T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.farmersweekly.co.nz\/letter-database-saga-causes-concern\/"},"modified":"2022-06-11T03:45:50","modified_gmt":"2022-06-10T15:45:50","slug":"letter-database-saga-causes-concern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farmersweekly.co.nz\/news\/letter-database-saga-causes-concern\/","title":{"rendered":"LETTER: Database saga causes concern"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

Most dairy farmers don\u2019t even know about it, yet it is costing us millions of dollars both as taxpayers and through our DairyNZ levy.<\/p>\n

DIGAD basically is the deregulating of Herd Improvement Industry (the data of herd testing, animal evaluations etc.) called the database.<\/p>\n

This has now been going on for four years (now up to phase three) with at least three phases still to go.<\/p>\n

Having attended an early meeting (held at LIC) after the meeting I asked a DairyNZ director how much it was going to cost. The answer: we haven\u2019t done any costs.<\/p>\n

This leaves me to ask:<\/p>\n

If DIGAD is such a great idea why was it not up and running in time for the present downturn in the dairy industry?<\/p>\n

How much is it going to cost?<\/p>\n

What are the actual benefits?<\/p>\n

What is the annual savings in money to the average dairy farmer?<\/p>\n

When is DIGAD going to be up and running?<\/p>\n

Why was a cost-benefit budget not done before a decision to proceed with DIGAD was made?<\/p>\n

In recent months the concern is LIC talking of restructuring into two divisions. Surely the issues surrounding DIGAD need to be addressed first.<\/p>\n

A breed society has been waiting four years for the database upgrade to produce its herd book.<\/p>\n

With technology moving fast will DIGAD be out of date before it\u2019s up and running?<\/p>\n

There just seems to be no will on behalf of all the parties involved to bring DIGAD to a speedy conclusion.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s totally unsatisfactory from a dairy farmer perspective. Just where is the accountability?<\/p>\n

Finally, I feel my DairyNZ levy would be better spent on:<\/p>\n

Facial eczema, we need a simple once-a-year injection to control it;<\/p>\n

More research on theileria and;<\/p>\n

Plastic wrap disposal. I suggest trucks delivering fertiliser or palm kernel to farms could backload the silage wrap to a factory where natural gas could be used to melt them down to then be reused in products such as road makers, fruit box trays or even interlocking, two-metre square panels that could be used for temporary housing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ian Dibble<\/p>\n

Te Aroha<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a dairy farmer I am becoming increasingly concerned about the long-running saga that is DIGAD, the Dairy Industry Good Animal Database.\u00a0\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"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