Bostocks Creek farmer Jack Hutt has learnt a lot about how New Zealand farmers deal with rain and high stocking rates – but he has returned from a study tour with a better appreciation of how Australians farm.
Mr Hutt was one of four young south-west Victorian dairy farmers to win awards from the DemoDAIRY Foundation to take part in a New Zealand study tour organised and led by Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC).
Max Bond, Cooriemungle, Sam Kermond, Nullawarre, and William Rea, Allansford, also received scholarships from the DemoDAIRY Foundation to take part in the five-day tour.
Eleven other dairy farmers from the Western District, Tasmania and South Australia were in the group. The participants visited seven different farms along with the LIC research centre.
Mr Hutt, 24, share farms with his partner Isobel Corneby for her parents Peter and Jenny, milking 200 mixed cows off 130 hectares at Bostocks Creek.
He has long had an interest in New Zealand farming systems and has started breeding with cross-bred bulls from New Zealand using LIC genetics.
“We’re a low-cost pasture-based system and with minimal grain inputs, which is a lot like New Zealand,” he said.
“Their pasture management is well ahead of the game. It’s different country; their ground seems to handle the rain and the heavy traffic from heavier stocking rates. One farmer we visited said they’d had two metres of rain since May and you could still drive a truck on the paddocks. Over here, we’ve had nearly a metre and we get bogged.”
Mr Hutt was impressed with the paddock drainage systems in New Zealand and the use of feed pads to get cows off the paddocks during wet times.
He will consider a feed pad down the track but has also been inspired to invest in cow collars. “A lot of the New Zealand farms have cow collars,” he said. “I think that would help with our breeding and making sure the cows are well fed. You can keep ahead of the game with them; rather than rely on your eyes, we probably need to start rolling out the technology.”
Despite being impressed by New Zealand farming during his first visit to the country, Mr Hutt has returned with positive thoughts about Australian dairy farmers.
“I was thinking we were a long way behind with our farming systems, but we’re probably not as far behind as I thought,” he said.
Mr Hutt was also inspired by the New Zealand countryside. “Hopefully Isobel and I can take the kids back in the next couple of years,” he said.
The New Zealand Dairy Study Tour, supported by LIC, took participants to seven dairy farms, including one milking sheep and one developing a kiwi fruit enterprise on part of the farm.
The four scholarship recipients are all part of the WestVic Dairy Young Dairy Network (YDN) and will share their findings at a later YDN event, along with writing reports for the DemoDAIRY Foundation.
DemoDAIRY Foundation secretary Ian Teese, who joined the tour, said participants got to see a good cross section of New Zealand dairy and other farming systems.
“Like Victoria, New Zealand has had a very long and wet winter and spring and their high stocking rates create problems when they have long, wet periods,” he said.
“Several of the farms were addressing that by roofing their feed pad areas.”
New Zealand dairy farms are also operating under tightening regulations for manure disposal and use of fertilisers.
“That was an eye-opener for the group who got an idea of the type of changes that will likely come in Australia,” Mr Teese said.
Mr Teese said the DemoDAIRY Foundation Board was open to funding other groups and farmers to do study tours. The Board will consider running a study tour to New Zealand in 2023.
More information about DemoDAIRY Foundation scholarships can be found at https://www.demodairy.com.au/scholarships-and-grants/.
Mike Waite LIC Western District representative, the farmer Walter van Rossum, Sam Kermond, Max Bond, Jack Hutt.
Big ram photo – Max Bond, William, Nick a SA young dairy farmer and Sam Kermond.