I visited New Zealand in 1988; that is so long ago, and it was a great feeling seeing the sunny pastures unfold beneath the plane. I love this place.
The second old friend was Christine Armstrong who between us we agreed I had not seen for 15 years. OMG!!
Christine showed me some of the delights of Sunday evening Auckland- and she hasn't changed a bit, what a laugh we had.
Typically we said we would leave the pub when the band played a rubbish song, unfortunately this was not until about 2am- the conference is not going to be easy tomorrow.
Sky Tower and Auckland Skyline
The conference was in fact much bigger than just a conference it was the World Dairy Summit at the Sky Tower Convention Centre which is attended by 2000 of the worlds top dairy persons- and me.
Topics under discussion were environmental impact, financial stability of markets, sustainable systems and when is the next round.... sorry, I mean networking session.
Monday:
The first session was the World Leaders Forum where 6 of the worlds leading dairy contributors discussed topics around farming, processing and environment. The discussions were well run by a local media star who kept the session lighter than may have been he case otherwise.
I'm not sure I heard anything new but it is clear that everyone is optimistic for world dairy trade- try telling that to the UK processors!!
At lunch I met with Tim Deane at Fonterra the company that processes and sells more than 80% of New Zealands milk.
I asked whether Fonterra used the image of green free range milk from New Zealand to sell milk overseas, Tim thought it helps them get a hold in certain markets; particularly China, but ti does not help to command a price advantage.
He said the company did not support the use of feed lots in sensitive parts of New Zealand and ruled out their use in other areas due to competitiveness. He didn't seem to think that there was a link to the feed lots being built in China by Fonterra.
In the evening I had a meeting with the Minister of Agriculture for New Zealand Hon David Carter- what a good guy- and so very approachable. I had been allocated a half hour meeting so I quickly got into questions for my study about what the govt of New Zealand thought of some issues around the perception of Dairy Farming in New Zealand and of their products around the world. He comes across as pragmatic and very supportive of the image of farming in his country. He was also of the view that a move to more feeding of cows away from pasture was an inevitable part of the growth of NZ Dairy. After our meeting I was invited to join the Ministers party at a drinks reception at the museum of boats (actually called the maritime museum- someone must like it??)
The first pastoral robotic milking unit in NZ
Tuesday:
Was "lets get out in the sun day" or more formally known as the farm tours.
We visited a research farm run by Dairy NZ to see demonstrations on effluent spreading- I was here 25 years ago and it has moved on very little. A paddock of weeds, sorry chicory and plantains was being touted as the next big thing... sorry it just doesn't look like the levy is being well spent here.
Next, was a robotic system for grazing cows which was a fantastic looking place (see above) but, spending nearly £250,000 on a unit for 95 cows when down the road there are units of 1500 cows or more and the average herd in NZ is 300 cows just doesn't stack up for me.
At our final farm, a well run environmental farm in the middle of the biggest swamp in NZ was very good, but again we were told that grass was the cheapest form of feed, compared to other feeds like palm kernel costed at $400NZ. But, what an embarrassment for DairyNZ- when asked by an Aussie what was the cost of grass then? No-one had an answer.... ooops.
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