As most people in Afimilk recognize now, the New Zealand market is currently very buoyant and very much in focus with Afimilk. The last year was good to dairy farmers and they have money to spend. Most of them are looking for systems that can improve their breeding statistics, as well as health monitoring.

The New Zealand farmer is a very different individual to other dairy farmers, they are familiar with Afimilk. These men and women are rarely found in their offices entering data on a herd management system. You’ll find them out in the pasture with their cows, mending fences, taking the vet around the farm, moving groups between pastures, checking on new calving, checking on pivot irrigators, and many other daily tasks that make up the daily routine of a New Zealand farmer.

I found a farming environment which was totally alien to me, coming from a land of TMR farming (Total Mixed Rations – in shed feeding routine) and moving to Afimilk’s farming mantra of very tight herd management routines. 

The experience of working within a tight herd management system was exhilarating. The learning curve was very steep, realizing that farmers use cows to manage grass is very strange to us, but it is not to them… at all. In fact, they have been doing this for 150 years. Often with the same family on the same land, and in the process clearing the North Island almost entirely of trees to make room for pasture lands. 

Due to these circumstances, much of the work we did was on site, on pasture… as you can see in the picture. When the sun comes down in the South Island a white mist descends on the land and the temperature drops as quick as the sun.