Dairy farmers are not the only ones reeling from the recent dairy price drop – dairy support and maize growers in the Waikato are worried too.
The recent publicity in the media about the projected milk price for the current season has focused largely on the dairy farmers, but this drop has a direct impact on dairy support providers too.
Supplement feed for dairy herds such as hay, grass silage, maize silage and maize grain, is a big part of the dairy industry and comes from the arable industry.
Dairy farmers have been told by bank managers, farm advisers and others to have a good hard look at their expenses and to cut out unnecessary spending.
This is astute advice, but at this stage of the season the cut should not come at the expense of the cow. Milking cows should be fed to capacity and should be gaining weight through high-quality supplementary feed before mating.
We arable farmers, like dairy farmers, have been advised to look at the costs of our production and where possible to cut back on unnecessary expenses. This is not easy to do with maize, as it is a crop that requires high input.
If fertiliser and weed spray is cut back, the production will really suffer; and after two years of drought we can’t afford to cut back, especially with contract prices for maize silage and maize grain easing to $410-$420 a tonne for the coming season.
Dairy farmers are not the only ones who will need a good season to compensate for the price drop.
Throwing another spanner into the works, there are reportedly many feed mills in both the North Island and South Island that have purchased imported grain, which will have impact on the demand for domestic grain.
Brewers grain is being dumped into New Zealand from the United States at a discounted price, which is a worry to growers here.
A lot of these imports are also genetically modified (GM), raising the debate for the potential of GM in New Zealand.
The varieties we grow now have been modified, which in some cases have taken 30 years to do instead of five years with GM, but let’s look at it from a scientific point of view rather than an emotional one.
In this area, the Dairy Industry Technical Advisory Group is developing a declaration form to be filled in by farmers who grow feed for sale to dairy farmers, and farmers who buy in feed for their dairy cows.
I have contacted growers for their response to this proposal, and without exception they have said that they will have nothing to do with this until the feed that is imported into New Zealand carries the same declaration, which would include palm kernel extract.
Not all is doom and gloom in the maize world.
The Foundation for Arable Research (Far) is expanding its trials area at Tamahere to include independent maize variety trials this season. Growers have been asking Far to do this for quite a while now.
They currently do this in the South Island with wheat varieties with excellent results for growers down there. Four locations have now been chosen with two in the Waikato, but unfortunately Genetic Technologies have pulled out of this trial, which is disappointing.
Nevertheless, we will be watching this trial with great interest.
Fingers crossed for the season ahead.
* John Hodge is Waikato Federated Farmers arable chairman.
Source: Stuff
