What will 2017 be remembered for on your farm – good or bad? We’ve looked back over the past year and pulled out what we considered were the top 10 influences of ‘impact players’ on farming.
1 Weather
Swings and roundabouts.
That’s how Federated Farmers Meat and Fibre chairperson Miles Anderson sums up the overall weather effect on sheep and beef farmers.
A difficult autumn for many meant a lot of stock wasn’t finished.
The long, wet winter was tough going but a relatively mild and wet spring produced a good lambing result and pasture. That said, a lack of sunshine post-winter has put young stock on the back foot.
He says indications are that there is a lack of spring lambs but the extent of that won’t be known until the New Year at meat processors.
He estimates the overall weather effect on beef and lamb farmers as “cost neutral”. However, the effects of prolonged wet conditions linger.
“Because it’s been wet for so long there will be a lot of pasture renewal over the next few months.”
Alliance livestock and shareholder services general manager Heather Stacy says rain-sodden ground created glitches with transport access. However, overall the weather has not affected processing throughput.
Drier-than-normal summer conditions in Southland and Central Otago could make it necessary to bring forward capacity by adding on more chains, or extending shifts.
She says the 2017-18 kill is projected to be up on last season although that could change if farmers decide to retain more replacement ewe lambs.
Cropping farmers in most parts of the country have borne the brunt of a much-wetter than usual year, Federated Farmers arable sector chairman and South Canterbury farmer Guy Wigley says.
“It’s fair to say arable farmers like it on the dry side rather than extreme wet, so this year’s rain has compromised yields.”
A handful of harvest days, and a very limited window of opportunity to get crops in the ground made autumn extremely difficult for Canterbury crop farmers. Many had to hold off autumn plantings due to the saturated soils and have sown spring barley rather than oil seed rape.
Nick Murney, managing director of Pure Oil, a Canterbury oilseed crush plant, says it’s been tough going due to the three months of rain from mid-February which led to a 35% reduction in the planted area of oil seed rape in Southland and Canterbury.
The climate is what we expect, the weather is what we get – Mark Twain.
“The crops that got through are looking good. A lot has been spring planted but it doesn’t yield as well… it’s a vulnerable crop at the establishment phase so you do need to nurse it.”
This year’s barley plantings are significantly up on the previous year and back to normal levels, although yield is likely to be down due to the late rather than early spring sowing.
Last year’s reduced barley production was an anomaly, the upshot of reduced demand from the dairy sector.
Another consequence of a wet 2017 is the lack of break crops leading into next year’s wheat crop.
In the North Island many maize growers struggled to harvest and get crop in the ground, with many plantings about two to three weeks later than usual. This had led to the planting of early maturing – and lower yielding – varieties, especially for silage.
Federated Farmers Waikato vice president and maize grower John Hodge says increased demand for the faster-maturing varieties created a shortage.
Like many other growers he still didn’t have his maize crop in the ground at the start of November because contractors were so far behind. Farms on the Hauraki Plains had been particularly hard hit.
“The water table is so high on some farms that after a shower of rain the water ponds in any dips.”
Although the upside of a higher water table meant that if there was a summer-dry spell maize roots had the ability to grow down and tap into water reserves.
“My message to farmers has been not to panic, I’ve seen maize crops planted late due to insect and bird damage and it does catch up… a week of good weather can make a big difference.”
2 Biosecurity
The great leap forward
Adoption of online Animal Status Declaration (ASD) forms is “the biggest potential game changer” for biosecurity in New Zealand, says Beef +Lamb NZ’s Chris Houston.
Electronic ASDs (eASDs), developed by the Red Meat Profit Partnership (RMPP), were piloted during 2017 and Houston’s keen to see them rolled out as fast as possible.
Initially that would be as an optional alternative to the current paper system but over time would hopefully become standard practice.
Paper ASDs are time consuming for both farmer and processor even in regular trading and in the event of a trace-back for certain biosecurity purposes, such as a fast moving animal disease, that time taken can be critical, he explains.
“On some farms you’ll find them sitting in a box in the woolshed, in no particular order. In an investigation sorting that out can be quite time consuming, for example names and addresses can be spelled in different ways or change over time in ways which aren’t immediately apparent. These issues are common across many paper different based systems.”
Besides meeting core traceability requirements under the Animal Products Act, eASDs can be tuned to an individual processor’s and/or their customers’ requirements, for example with information on antibiotic use, feeds, and other management practices.
“They have the ability to support all sorts of additional customer assurances.”
Houston says BLNZ and the RMPP aims to have every meat company in the country offering an eASD alternative to the paper system within the next year.
‘On some farms you’ll find them sitting in a box in the woolshed, in no particular order.’
“We’ll then look at how we encourage uptake for farm to farm and farm to saleyard movements, so that they cover all changes of ownership.”
MPI has indicated it will lead a bigger discussion about traceability and some legislative tweaks may be required, he adds.
Another key biosecurity area to address is the availability of accurate data about the geographical location of livestock farms.
“The most important thing in a disease outbreak is knowing where the farms with susceptible species of livestock are,”
Houston says, who studied veterinary epidemiology in the immediate aftermath of the devastating UK foot-and-mouth epidemic of 2001.
“I was taught by some of the people who were the leaders in the investigation of that outbreak.”
Farmers may believe they know what animals are where in their district, but in practice that information isn’t always accurate and it certainly isn’t rapidly available to those that need to know in the event of a disease outbreak: the Government vets.
“In every other developed country where there are large numbers of cattle, sheep, pigs or deer, with the exception of the US, biosecurity services require information about where farms are – including lifestylers.
For a country as dependent on farming as we are, it seems sensible for us to take every reasonable and proportionate step to making sure we have this information, even if it means making it mandatory.”
2 Biosecurity
Invasions make year busy
In the cropping sector FAR’s Ivan Lawrie says he’s hoping 2018 will be a quieter one in terms of biosecurity than the year just gone.
“Last year there was certainly a lot of activity,” he says, reflecting on the ongoing battles with velvet leaf, pea weevil and blackgrass, and emergence of another pest, red clover case bearer moth (RCCB).
Of those, velvet leaf was and is the most concerning, even though there were no repeat cases found related to the contaminated beet seed incursion of 2015.
“It is the most concerning because of its widespread distribution and the unknown implication of buried seed that might not have been detected.”
Unchecked, the tall, large-leaved weed competes aggressively with crops and sheds prodigious amounts of seed with up to 50-year viability.
‘Everything that could possibly be put in place with beet has been done. Now we need to make sure there are similar standards for all imports of seed.’
About 20 Waikato farmers now know that to their cost, as infestations, thought to have originated from seed spread in maize silage and possibly on contracting equipment, have sapped maize yields and caused harvesting headaches.
Lawrie says while it’s the same weed species involved in the Waikato and the 2015/16 beet crops, it’s behaved quite differently in the two situations, suggesting different strains of velvet leaf are involved.
“There is research underway by MPI to find out more about the biology of them.”
Other lessons have already been learnt and stricter border controls implemented, such as requiring unpelleted samples of any seed imported in a coating. Overseas seed production procedures are better understood and there are stronger links with MPI’s counterparts in countries New Zealand imports seed from, he adds.
“Everything that could possibly be put in place with beet has been done. Now we need to make sure there are similar standards for all imports of seed.”
The pea weevil incursion in Wairarapa has seen a similar raising of import standards, with soak testing now mandatory.
“It’s a density test. If the seed’s been eaten out inside by the weevil, which is actually a bruchid beetle, there’s a difference in density and it floats.”
Fumigation of pea seed imports was mandatory before the incursion but as that’s normally carried out overseas, processes to ensure it happens properly have been improved, he adds.
As for blackgrass, intensive surveillance of all properties with links to the original find has found nothing on all but two farms, both of which have a link to the seed origin. Response work is now focused on eradicating the weed from those three farms.
Blackgrass is the number one weed problem in northern European cereal crops and has developed resistance to many herbicides. The source of the NZ incursion is thought to have been a 2007 import of ryegrass seed from the United Kingdom, before blackgrass (Alopecurus myosuroides) was on the unwanted organisms list.
Federated Farmers’ national biosecurity spokesman Guy Wigley says eradication looks likely which would be “a wonderful outcome”.
Meanwhile on the livestock side he’s hopeful the same can be achieved with Mycoplasma bovis, though there has and will be a huge cost involved.
“One thing that has come out of it is the need for dairy farms to create a buffer between them and their neighbour with a double fence and boundary plantings to create a physical barrier between them and neighbouring properties.”
Wigley says that is “absolutely” something sheep and beef farmers should work towards too, though with generally much longer boundaries it will not always be possible.
Across all the incursions in play in 2017 a common theme is the need for tighter on-arm biosecurity, as well as identifying where the import standards were at fault, he says.
Ensuring equipment moving from farm-to-farms, and even paddock-to-paddock, is clean is a key lesson.
“I think farmers in general are much more aware of the need for onfarm biosecurity than they were. The livestock industry has had a big scare from Mycoplasma bovis and even though it looks like being kept very local it really highlights the hazards and impacts of a biosecurity incursion.”
Lawrie too says a positive from the cropping incursions is that they’ve highlighted areas where biosecurity practices were lacking. Also, industry and MPI have learnt to work more closely together as a result of them and the sector is making progress towards a government industry agreement.
3 Well-being
Opening up to wellness
While the pressures of farming may not have let up on farmers, they are proving better at finding and adopting strategies to combat mental health stresses and conditions.
A survey from the past year by Farmstrong found farmers have increased ability to cope with the ups and downs of farming life and are getting better at sharing and opening up about issues they face.
Gerard Vaughan, spokesman for the Farmstrong initiative says he has noticed a lot more openness in talking about mental health challenges.
“I spend a lot of time hanging out and having conversations in rural settings and I have noticed that mental health and wellness are much more on people’s radar.”
Farmstrong was founded by FMG and the Mental Health Foundation with funding support from the Movember Foundation and strategic partner ACC.
The increased use of the Farmstrong website shows through in the digital stats and Vaughan says other factors have helped – Good Yarn workshops, Doug Avery’s talks and book on resilience, the Healthy Thinking Workshops and other collaborations across the sector.
All Black Sam Whitelock has been an ambassador for the initiative for the past year and Vaughan says he has attracted a crowd wherever he has been.
“Everyone loves a celebrity and a sporting one, but Sam is very relatable – he is very humble and loves chatting to people and having a cup of tea,,”
Vaughan says the added benefit is having someone who can draw parallels between operating as a sportsperson and a busy farming business person – the stresses, expectations and reliance of others.
Sam is sharing practical strategies, tips and knowledge of how important management of mental wellbeing and performance is in that circumstance – over 300,000 people have watched Farmstrong video clips of his and others’ messages.
Vaughan says the mental side of performance is the winning edge – that top two inches of the brain which is involved in managing loss, disappointment, visualising how things should go – it is totally similar to managing healthy emotions and has been translated into the Healthy Thinking workshops.
“Bedding-in thinking strategies and personal WOF checks for mind and body will come from farmer-to-farmer persuasion and storytelling.”
Farmstrong plans to build on their platforms and include interactive skillbased learning while continuing to create opportunities for community events and to extend the reach of the audience to farming partners and families.
