I flew down here on Thursday as part of the World Dairy Summit to look at a modern milk powder plant(you can see why it might sound boring but was in fact very interesting) Synlait was set up by a group of farmers to vertically integrate their 4000 ha dairy farm which has 14000 cows. The plant makes baby milk and colostrum powder amongst other things. If you remember I tried a colostrum tablet in China- this is probably where it came from. The company has now been bought out 51% by the chinese- is there a reverse takeover of NZ??
Exciting picture of milk plant
Next was Lincoln University where a coalition of most of the major research persons, supply companies and farmers (yes proactive guys that they are) have got together to create the South Island Dairy Development Company which does lots of research on a commercial basis on a farm owned by the University with 800 cows.
Dairy Farmers in Canterbury have a bad image problem as the local townspeople and some sheep and arable farmers blame them for polluting rivers and using too much water on farms. "Dirty Dairy" is a campaign against them initiated by the hunting and fishing lobby.
The research farm makes money for the University (apparently quite a bit) and the research is helping the farmers image in the area by proving that they don't pollute rivers.
I have been staying in Christchurch the past 2 nights, the weather is fantastic and I have been having some time off- not that it has helped with the bags under my eyes, this traveling is very knackering.
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