High-tech arrives at the farm gate

But guesswork is no longer enough if sheep and beef farmers want to secure a stable and profitable future for their sector. Smart technologies are now available which are catapulting the sector into a new era.

A three-year trial of the technologies was completed in June this year on two New Zealand drystock farms. The North Island farm belongs to John and Anne Brier of Ngaroma, near Te Awamutu. They run 7,000 stock units on 634 hectares.

The South Island farm belongs to James and Charles Reid of Outram, near Dunedin. They run 34,000 stock units on 5300 hectares.

Strategists chose which innovations would be trialed on each farm – depending on weather, size and the identified requirements of the farm – and the results were unequivocal. Lambs were 20-30 percent heavier at weaning, annual feed production increased 40 percent, and implementation of six new technologies produced a return of 18-36 percent on investment each year.

But does the sheep and beef sector really need these fancy new tools? Lamb prices may be on the rise but they’re still a long way off Federated Farmers’ stated goal of $150 a head. 

Commentators say the only way sheep and beef farmers can hope to achieve such goals, is through innovation like that shown throughout the trials.

NZTE sector manager ICT Craig Taylor says: “There’s a lot more they can do to get better production out of their farms”.

Investment in innovation would present opportunities for much-needed on-farm efficiencies, and help New Zealand position itself as an environmentally-aware, reliable and high-value producer. And with that sort of reputation and guaranteed supply, money starts to flow.

The situation

In the past year, the price paid for an average fatted lamb has risen from $55 to $90. This is basic supply and demand at work: fewer sheep, higher prices.

Statistics New Zealand’s 2008 Agricultural Production Survey shows the national flock fell to 34 million last year – an 11 percent decrease from 2007. This was the largest cull recorded since the flock reached its peak of 70 million in 1982. Kill rates have also been high internationally.

In New Zealand, sheep, beef and deer numbers fall as dairy numbers rise. There were 5.6 million dairy cows in June 2008 – six percent up on 2007. Meanwhile, beef cattle numbers fell six percent to 4.1 million and deer numbers fell to 1.2 million – the same size of the national herd in 1994.

On many measures, sheep and beef farmers have to work a lot harder to achieve profitability compared with dairy farmers. The financial gains are much less – even in a year when the milk-solids payout has slumped on forecast.

Dairy farmers have the milk giant Fonterra selling and marketing on their behalf, while the sheep and beef sector is notoriously fractious. New Zealand has 27 meat companies and the rivalry is infamous. And then there’s the high-quality information which is collected for dairy farmers by artificial insemination and breeding specialists who visit their farms.

Dairy farmers also have the advantage of close contact with their animals at milking time, smaller farms, and much smaller herds on which to build and remember individual knowledge.

This knowledge, along with the rich information within the breeding analysis, is used to assist decisions on stock conditioning, grazing, culling and pregnancy.

Graeme Ogle is a farm systems specialist with Rezare Systems and manager of Farmax Ltd, the Waikato-based company which sells Farmax farm modelling software. He says it’s not that dairy farmers are any more technologically-savvy or forward-thinking than sheep and beef farmers, they just have the odds stacked in their favour.

“Dairy farmers won’t commit any more time than a sheep and beef farmer to analysis, but they have more stuff at their fingertips. Sheep and beef farmers need to allocate more time to get on a par with what dairy farmers get as a matter of course.”

Unfortunately, farmers in neither sector are currently investing as much time as they could.