Adelaide Hills, South Australia | It's amazing how one small problem will lead to people looking at everything you have that isn't perfect. I have been to NZ twice, both times looking at Dairy Farm buisnesses. The way the cows are grazed is good when conditions allow. I think some farms should probably have a better way of feeding and managing the cows on the days when it was to wet for them to graze. Their water management did seem a bit out or old fashioned, whoever has the most money and deepest bores got the water or the biggest pumps out of the river got the most water. I can see a water management plan needed as has been developed here. Not a lot of it is irrigated. If I remember correctly dairy effluent runoff could have been managed better in some placesw and the high fertiliser inputs some used on some farms did concern us. I think some of those issues will have been scrutinised because of the high fertiliser cost since we were last there.
I didn't see any rivers that looked to polluted to swim in or any feed used for cows that would concern me. Their farming systems overall look healthy. Cows look great out grazing in green pastures, and getting a fresh area of pasture after each milking. From my experience cows are less likely to pick up desease and infections out grazing than being housed in barns or confined to feedlots. I like a mix of the system where cows can be suplementry fed above what they get from pasture, but still have the opportunity to go out and graze some fresh pasture each day, and that is the way we have developed our farm.
The factories we visited had all the food safety and QA systems in place and appeared to be working well. We didn't see any drugs or hormones used for cows that aren't registered for use here. I would confidently consume NZ food products, apart from the fact they are one of our major competitors and we should be buying Australian! There are other imported products coming here now that concern me much more. |
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