HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Dairy farming Dairy farming is a class of agriculture for long-term production of milk, which is processed (either on the farm or at a dairy plant, either of which may be called a dairy) for eventual sale of a dairy product. Dairy farming has a history t ...
in
New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...
began from small beginnings during the early days of colonisation by Europeans. The New Zealand dairy industry is based almost exclusively on
cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus '' Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult ...
, with a population of 4.92 million milking cows in the 2019-20 season. The income from dairy farming is now a major part of the
New Zealand economy The economy of New Zealand is a highly developed free-market economy. It is the 51st-largest national economy in the world when measured by nominal gross domestic product (GDP) and the 63rd-largest in the world when measured by purchasing p ...
, becoming an NZ$13.4 billion industry by 2017.


History

In 1814 the missionary
Samuel Marsden Samuel Marsden (25 June 1765 – 12 May 1838) was an English-born priest of the Church of England in Australia and a prominent member of the Church Missionary Society, believed to have introduced Christianity to New Zealand. Marsden was a prom ...
introduced the first
Shorthorn The Shorthorn breed of cattle originated in the North East of England in the late eighteenth century. The breed was developed as dual-purpose, suitable for both dairy and beef production; however, certain blood lines within the breed always emp ...
dairy cows to the Bay of Islands from New South Wales. From the 1840s, most settlements had farms with some Shorthorn dairy cattle. Herds tended to be larger near urban areas. The first dairy co-operative was established on
Otago Peninsula The Otago Peninsula ( mi, Muaūpoko) is a long, hilly indented finger of land that forms the easternmost part of Dunedin, New Zealand. Volcanic in origin, it forms one wall of the eroded valley that now forms Otago Harbour. The peninsula lies sou ...
in 1871. In 1881, the newly arrived colonist William Bowron gave a series of lectures propounding the notion that the institution of dairy factories, for the mass production of cheese, would be greatly advantageous to the economy of New Zealand. He was largely instrumental in the establishment of the Ashburton Cheese and Butter Factory at Flemington. The factory was managed by William Harding, the son of the inventor of modern
Cheddar cheese Cheddar cheese (or simply cheddar) is a natural cheese that is relatively hard, off-white (or orange if colourings such as annatto are added), and sometimes sharp-tasting. Cheddar originates from the English village of Cheddar in Somerset. Che ...
, Joseph Harding. The venture was a great success, and consequently Bowron was appointed Government Inspector of Dairy Factories in 1883. In this capacity, he largely facilitated the setting up of factories across the country until his death in 1890. He published three pamphlets on the manufacture of cheese, butter and bacon in New Zealand. By 1920, there were 600 dairy processing factories of which about 85% were owned by co-operatives. In 1923, the New Zealand Dairy Board (NZDB) was formed as a statutory board with monopoly control of the export of all New Zealand dairy products. In the 1930s there were around 500 co-operatives but after
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, improved transportation, processing technologies and energy systems led to a trend of consolidation where the co-operatives merged and became larger and fewer in number. By the late 1990s, there were four co-operatives: the
Waikato Waikato () is a local government region of the upper North Island of New Zealand. It covers the Waikato District, Waipa District, Matamata-Piako District, South Waikato District and Hamilton City, as well as Hauraki, Coromandel Peninsul ...
-based New Zealand Dairy Group, the
Taranaki Taranaki is a region in the west of New Zealand's North Island. It is named after its main geographical feature, the stratovolcano of Mount Taranaki, also known as Mount Egmont. The main centre is the city of New Plymouth. The New Plymouth D ...
-based Kiwi Co-operative Dairies, the
Hokitika Hokitika is a town in the West Coast region of New Zealand's South Island, south of Greymouth, and close to the mouth of the Hokitika River. It is the seat and largest town in the Westland District. The town's estimated population is as of ...
-based Westland Milk Products and
Tatua Co-operative Dairy Company The Tatua Co-operative Dairy Company Ltd, trading as Tatua, is an independent co-operative dairy company in the Matamata-Piako District of the Waikato Region, in the North Island of New Zealand. It is located in the rural locality of Tatuanu ...
. In 1988, due to the effects of
Cyclone Bola Severe Tropical Cyclone Bola was one of the costliest cyclones in the history of New Zealand, causing severe damage as an extratropical cyclone when it passed near the country in March 1988. It formed on February 24 to the north of Fiji, and tra ...
, many farms in
Taranaki Taranaki is a region in the west of New Zealand's North Island. It is named after its main geographical feature, the stratovolcano of Mount Taranaki, also known as Mount Egmont. The main centre is the city of New Plymouth. The New Plymouth D ...
converted from agriculture to dairy farming. In 2001, the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act 2001 was passed, allowing the two largest remaining cooperatives, New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company Ltd and Kiwi Co-operative Dairies Ltd, to merge with the New Zealand Dairy Board to produce
Fonterra Fonterra Co-operative Group Limited is a New Zealand multinational publicly traded dairy co-operative owned by around 9,000 New Zealand farmers. The company is responsible for approximately 30% of the world's dairy exports and with revenue exc ...
, now New Zealand's largest company.


Farm operations

Dairy farming in New Zealand is primarily
pasture Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep, or sw ...
-based. Dairy cattle primarily feed on grass, supplemented by
silage Silage () is a type of fodder made from green foliage crops which have been preserved by fermentation to the point of acidification. It can be fed to cattle, sheep and other such ruminants (cud-chewing animals). The fermentation and storage ...
, hay and other crops during winter and other times of slow pasture growth. Traditional dairy production areas are the wetter areas of the country, including the
Waikato Waikato () is a local government region of the upper North Island of New Zealand. It covers the Waikato District, Waipa District, Matamata-Piako District, South Waikato District and Hamilton City, as well as Hauraki, Coromandel Peninsul ...
, the
Bay of Plenty The Bay of Plenty ( mi, Te Moana-a-Toi) is a region of New Zealand, situated around a bight of the same name in the northern coast of the North Island. The bight stretches 260 km from the Coromandel Peninsula in the west to Cape Runaw ...
,
Taranaki Taranaki is a region in the west of New Zealand's North Island. It is named after its main geographical feature, the stratovolcano of Mount Taranaki, also known as Mount Egmont. The main centre is the city of New Plymouth. The New Plymouth D ...
, Manawatū, Nelson,
Tasman Tasman most often refers to Abel Tasman (1603–1659), Dutch explorer. Tasman may also refer to: Animals and plants * Tasman booby * Tasman flax-lily * Tasman parakeet (disambiguation) * Tasman starling * Tasman whale People * Tasman (n ...
and the West Coast, but Increase irrigation has seen dairy farms established in drier areas such as
Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of t ...
and
Otago Otago (, ; mi, Ōtākou ) is a region of New Zealand located in the southern half of the South Island administered by the Otago Regional Council. It has an area of approximately , making it the country's second largest local government reg ...
. Around 56% of dairy farms in New Zealand are owner-operated as of 2015, while 29% are operated by sharemilkers and 14% are operated by contract milkers. Herd-owning ''s''haremilkers (formerly 50:50 sharemikers) own their own herd, and are responsible for employing workers and the day-to-day operations of the farm, in return for receiving a percentage (typically 50%) of the milk income. Variable order sharemilkers do not own their own herd, and receive a lower percentage (typically 20-30%) of the milk income, while contract milkers are paid a fixed price per unit of milk. The dairy farming year in New Zealand typically runs from 1 June to 31 May. The first day of the new year, known as "Moving Day" or "Gypsy Day", sees a large-scale migration as sharemilkers and contract milkers take up new contracts and move herds and equipment between farms. Calving typically takes place in late winter (July and August), and cows are milked for 270 days before being dried off in late autumn (April and May). Some farms, either wholly or partly, employ winter milking, with calving in late summer and early autumn (February and March).


Processing and export

In the 2019-20 season, New Zealand produced of raw milk containing 1.9 million tonnes of milk solids (protein and milkfat). This makes the country the world's seventh-largest milk producer, with about 3% of world production in the 2016/17 dairy season. Most of this exported, with Fonterra alone responsible for approximately 30% of the world's dairy exports. Before the advent of refrigerated shipping in the 1880s, dairy production was entirely for local consumption, with butter and cheese usually being produced on the farm, with the surplus being sold to the community via the local store. Small dairy factories began to be established in the 1880s, and soon there was one in almost every village in dairying regions. Production began to be centralised in the second half of the 20th century, with facilities such as the Fonterra plants at Whareroa (near Hāwera), Edendale, Clandeboye (near Timaru), and Te Rapa being the four largest in the Southern Hemisphere. Whareroa is also currently the largest dairy factory in the world by milk intake.
Fonterra Fonterra Co-operative Group Limited is a New Zealand multinational publicly traded dairy co-operative owned by around 9,000 New Zealand farmers. The company is responsible for approximately 30% of the world's dairy exports and with revenue exc ...
is the largest processor of milk in New Zealand, processing 82 percent of all milk solids as of 2018. Other large dairy companies are Open Country Dairy (7.4%),
Synlait Synlait Milk is a New Zealand milk nutrition company with several locations, both in New Zealand and overseas. Its home base is in Dunsandel, Canterbury. Synlait has additional manufacturing sites in Auckland and Pokeno, an administration o ...
and Westland Milk Products (3.4% each), Miraka (1.4%), Oceania Dairy (1.1%), and
Tatua Co-operative Dairy Company The Tatua Co-operative Dairy Company Ltd, trading as Tatua, is an independent co-operative dairy company in the Matamata-Piako District of the Waikato Region, in the North Island of New Zealand. It is located in the rural locality of Tatuanu ...
(0.7%).


Pest and diseases


Enzootic bovine leucosis

Enzootic bovine leucosis is a form of leukaemia caused by the Bovine leukemia virus (BLV). In 1997, a national control scheme was implemented with the goal of eradicating BLV from New Zealand. This was declared successful in 2009


Bovine tuberculosis

Bovine tuberculosis is currently (2012) endemic in
possums Possum may refer to: Animals * Phalangeriformes, or possums, any of a number of arboreal marsupial species native to Australia, New Guinea, and Sulawesi ** Common brushtail possum (''Trichosurus vulpecula''), a common possum in Australian urban ...
across approximately 38 per cent of New Zealand (known as ‘vector risk areas’). In these areas, nearly 70 per cent of new herd infections can be traced back to possums or ferrets. From 1979–1984, possum control was stopped due to lack of funding. In spite of regular and frequent TB testing of cattle herds, the number of infected herds snowballed and continued to increase until 1994, and the area of New Zealand where there were TB wild animals expanded from about 10 to 40 per cent. The
Biosecurity Act 1993 Biosecurity Act 1993 is an Act of Parliament in New Zealand. The Act is a restatement and reform of the laws relating to pests and other unwanted organisms. It was a world first. In the Act an "unwanted organism" is defined to be one that "is ...
, which established a National Pest Management Strategy, is the legislation behind control of the disease in New Zealand. The Animal Health Board (AHB) operates a nationwide programme of cattle testing and possum control with the goal of eradicating the bacterium responsible for bovine tuberculosis (''Mycobacterium bovis'') from wild vector species across 2.5 million hectares – or one quarter – of New Zealand's at-risk areas by 2026 and, eventually, eradicating the disease entirely. As of the 2017/18 dairy season, only twenty herds in New Zealand remained affected. Possums are not native to New Zealand, and are considered both an agricultural and a conservation pest. They are controlled through a combination of
trapping Animal trapping, or simply trapping or gin, is the use of a device to remotely catch an animal. Animals may be trapped for a variety of purposes, including food, the fur trade, hunting, pest control, and wildlife management. History Neolithi ...
, ground-baiting and, where other methods are impractical, aerial treatment with
1080 poison Sodium fluoroacetate is an organofluorine chemical compound with the formula FCH2CO2Na. This colourless salt has a taste similar to that of sodium chloride and is used as a rodenticide. History and production The effectiveness of sodium fluoro ...
. That possums are such effective transmitters of TB appears to be facilitated by their behaviour once they succumb to the disease. Terminally ill TB possums will show increasingly erratic behaviour, such as venturing out during the daytime to get enough food to eat, and seeking out buildings in which to keep warm. As a consequence they may wander onto paddocks, where they naturally attract the attention of inquisitive cattle and deer. This behaviour has been captured on video.


Mycoplasma Bovis

Mycoplasma bovis, a bacterial disease known to cause a range of serious conditions in cattle was detected in New Zealand in July 2017. Known conditions include mastitis, pneumonia, arthritis, and late-term abortions. The disease has been described as the worst disease to land in New Zealand, with an eradication cost estimated at $886 million over 10 years.


Leptospirosis

Leptospirosis Leptospirosis is a blood infection caused by the bacteria '' Leptospira''. Signs and symptoms can range from none to mild (headaches, muscle pains, and fevers) to severe ( bleeding in the lungs or meningitis). Weil's disease, the acute, sever ...
is a disease caused by bacteria known as Leptospira and is one of the most common diseases transmitted from animals to humans in New Zealand. The disease is common amongst dairy farmers and the numbers notified are increasing yearly with 141 cases notified in 2017.


Environmental impacts

Dairy farming is being increasingly held to account for the environmental impacts of the industry. Fish and Game started the "
dirty dairying In New Zealand "dirty dairying" refers to damage to the ecological health of New Zealand's freshwater environment by the intensification of dairy farming, and also to the high profile campaign begun in 2002 by the Fish and Game Council to highlig ...
" campaign in 2002 to highlight the effect of dairying on water quality. As a response to the campaign the
Dairying and Clean Streams Accord The Dairying and Clean Streams Accord is an agreement signed in 2003 in New Zealand between Fonterra, Ministry for the Environment, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and regional councils. The Accord was prompted by the high-profile "dirty da ...
was established in an attempt to reduce the level of water pollution. Initially the family owned
Crafar Farms CraFarms (or Crafar Farms) is a group of companies of which Allan, Beth and Frank Crafar were Directors. Crafar Farms was New Zealand's largest family-owned dairy business. The family business owned 22 dry stock and dairy farms with approximately ...
bore the brunt of the prosecutions and were labelled the "poster boys for dirty dairying" by Environment Waikato's regulatory committee chairman Ian Balme. Dairy NZ in 2014 claimed that as a direct result of the Sustainable Dairying: Water Accord all New Zealand dairy companies now have programmes in place to assess the effluent systems of suppliers on a three-yearly basis, with several assessing every farm every year. Despite this, a 2018 report from
Forest and Bird Forest & Bird ( mi, Te Reo o te Taiao), also known by its formal name as the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand, is an environmental organisation specialising in the protection and conservation of New Zealand's indigenous f ...
found that regional councils had 425 reported cases of serious non-compliance in 2016–17, and this was likely a significant under-reporting.


Milk pricing

Dairy farmers are paid by milk processors based on the amount of milk solids (protein and fat) sold. For the 2019-20 season, Fonterra paid farmers $7.14 per kilogram of milk solids (kgMS) excluding
GST GST may refer to: Taxes * General sales tax * Goods and Services Tax, the name for the value-added tax in several jurisdictions: ** Goods and services tax (Australia) ** Goods and Services Tax (Canada) ** Goods and Services Tax (Hong Kong) **Go ...
, with other processors paying between $6.75 and $9.96 per kgMS. Farmers are penalised if they supply milk that fails to meet quality standards, for example, if there is a high
somatic cell count A somatic cell count (SCC) is a cell count of somatic cells in a fluid specimen, usually milk. In dairying, the SCC is an indicator of the quality of milk—specifically, its low likeliness to contain harmful bacteria, and thus its high food s ...
or antibiotics are present. In 2011 controversy arose over the retail price of milk in New Zealand, leading to an enquiry by a government
select committee Select committee may refer to: *Select committee (parliamentary system) A select committee is a committee made up of a small number of parliamentary members appointed to deal with particular areas or issues originating in the Westminster system o ...
and a small scale price war.


See also

*
Agriculture in New Zealand In New Zealand, agriculture is the largest sector of the tradable economy. The country exported NZ$46.4 billion worth of agricultural products (raw and manufactured) in the 12 months to June 2019, 79.6% of the country's total exported goods. T ...
*
Sharemilking Sharemilking, a form of sharefarming, operates in the dairy industry. The application of this model of agriculture occurs particularly commonly in New Zealand. The most common arrangement is ''herd-owning sharemilking'' or ''50:50 sharemilking''. ...
*
Crafar Farms CraFarms (or Crafar Farms) is a group of companies of which Allan, Beth and Frank Crafar were Directors. Crafar Farms was New Zealand's largest family-owned dairy business. The family business owned 22 dry stock and dairy farms with approximately ...


References


Further reading

* *


External links


Te Ara – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand (1966)
– Dairy farming
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
– The New Zealand Dairy Industry
DairyNZ
– an industry organisation
South Island Dairying Development Centre
– a partnership of six organisations set up to promote dairying in the South Island
godairy.co.nz
– an industry promotional website {{DEFAULTSORT:Dairy Farming In New Zealand