Posts by Farmer Green
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to mccx,
Why wouldn’t this just lead to more intensification and more conversions to dairy?
It is not necessary to intensify this industry because it is sufficiently profitable. You assume that farmers are driven by something other than mere survival. That is prejudice. Sure there are some pigs , but that is human nature. For most enough is enough.
There is not enough suitable land in N.Z. to support the present cow population at the reduced stocking rate in the FG model. Indeed some of the land recently converted to dairy is completely unsuitable when appropriate environmental constraints are imposed , as they will be.
So there is no way to get up to 6 million cows at 0.5 cows / hectare and still comply with environmental constraints.
In any case you are missing the point that it is the number of cows /Ha that is the problem ; not the number of Ha or the total number of cows.
Your comments about government are revealing. Don't be too cynical.
Don't forget that farmers are a tiny minority of the voting population. -
Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to BenWilson,
Yes you've nailed it all there. ; the trifecta is "clean green and fresh".
It is fresh product ; cultured food; stability achieved by acidification, not by water removal and drying.
Shelf life from manufacture is 12-16 weeks . The destination is nearby Asia by seafreight.
The limit to sales is the amount of supermarket shelf space that you can occupy every day, so the production in your lowest month is your limiting factor for total sales. You want it as flat as possible.
And if you produce more than your allotted shelf space then you are forced to turn the fresh raw milk into a longer-life , lower-value product , like powder.
We had such an industry in Godzone once ; it was the first thing to be abolished when the current shemozzle was first mooted.The reason we have to produce all the milk when it is cheapest to do so (seasonally)is because we are turning it into low value commodities.
Remember where the dairy industry is coming from; we once aimed to be the cheapest producer in the world. The corollary is that our farmers were the lowest paid. All of that has changed (and Britain joined the ECC) but we didn't redesign the industry to suit the changed conditions.
Your last sentence alludes to the factor of utilisation; all the plant is running all the time. At the moment factories costing $300 million or more lie idle for three months.Thanks for bothering to engage and think about it.
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Stewart,
Because he (Matthew) is a sceptic? :-) The place is full of them.
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to BenWilson,
The theoretical calving pattern for dead flat daily production throughout the year is all cows calving January-June.
No cows calving in Spring ; the worst possible time to calve cows and the toughest on calves, and definitely the worst possible time to have high stock densities.
The figures used are from a real example; the major difference is that all the water was left in the milk; milk is 86% water. Check out a litre of natural yoghurt (additive -free) in a supermarket ; retail will be over $6/litre.
The example uses just under $3/litre for the gross realisation to the dairy company. In fact on a C&F basis $4 -$4.50/litre is possible but $3 is good enough for the purpose of this example.This is what added-value is all about. Milk powder doesn’t cut it.
Why do you mention the beef? Bobby calves?
I haven’t mentioned the on -farm situation; my approach has been solely to show that we can reduce the impact on waterways while raising the amount of money coming into the country , so that we can afford to save what’s left of the conservation estate
But on -farm , it is basically producing half the milk for double the price. Again , taken from an actual example. -
Out of sheer boredom , FG has crunched some numbers.
The industry currently sells 20 billion litres , produced by 6 million cows (3300 litres/cow), at a gross realisation of about $20billion.
FG ’s model has 1.5 million cows producing 10.5 billion litres on a year-round basis(7500 litres /cow) for a gross realisation of $30 billion.
The stocking rate has dropped from 2cows /Ha to 0.5 cows/Ha. The nitrogen loss to ground water has been substantially reduced.
That would be a no-brainer wouldn’t it?
Has FG got it wrong? -
Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Ross Mason,
It has already been done; some farmers have them. It works better if you bring all the food to the cows in a barn so that you get a drier, more concentrated mixture; a watery slurry is not ideal.
So you’ll need a lot more energy to cut and carry all the feed to the cows , maintain the atmosphere in the barn, and then cart the final product after methane removal back to the fields and spread it. The waste will have to be composted to stabilise the nitrogen before application to the fields ; that will involve further energy input for turning /aeration.
Farmer Green is heading in exactly the opposite direction:; he plans to use a mobile milking robot to milk the cows in the paddock , thus eliminating the concentration of manure (and pathogens) at the cowshed, and saving the energy that the cows expend walking to and from the shed. It will also eliminate the animal welfare issue of having lame cows. The manure will stay in the paddock where you want it.Have a look at this :
Anyway the problem is too many cows on too few hectares ; your plan is not really addressing that , unless you plan to export the digester feedstock after the methane has been removed [ the process also produces quite a bit of CO2 ; SHOCK HORROR :-)]
I think that perhaps people are not understanding that it is cows urinating on pastures that is causing the most critical damage to waterways. The soil can only absorb so much ; the rest goes straight through into the ground water and ends up in the streams and rivers.
The dairy industry knows this ; the Clean Streams Accord was a smoke- screen to deflect attention from the real problem. Farmer Green thinks the strategy has been quite successful. -
You’ll have to excuse my ignorance there: I haven’t had a TV in the house for over 35 years so I googled media3 (which I had never heard of) and found the interview.
I’d now like to see Russell interview an appropriate person to discuss the possibility of doing on a much larger scale exactly as FG has done.
The obvious problems in scaling it up are that there is no suitable brand and there is not enough milk available for three to five months of the year.
The problem of getting the cockies to change is an economic one which is insurmountable while Fonterra maintains its present “co-operative principles”. -
Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to andin,
Sorry , which; crony capitalism or no way to change it?
What did Mike say?
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Kumara Republic,
millions are being doled out to friends in high places.
O.K crony capitalism is the name of the game . . . everywhere
No way to change that.(barring violent revolution).
So a bigger pie? -
Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Sacha,
You want to hear about the elephant in the room?
Or should that be dinosaur?