Dairy farmers buy more palm kernel
The toughest calving spring in 20 years has seen farmers in Waikato, Taranaki and Manawatu¯ fall back on feed supplements to see them through, especially palm kernel expeller (PKE).
But the demand has left suppliers scrambling to deliver as promptly as farmers might want, with a two-week wait compared with the usual two days.
Matamata stock food supplier Swap Stockfoods confirmed demand for all types of concentrate feed and not just palm kernel had picked up in the last two weeks.
‘‘We’ve got to the point where it’s so wet. For a lot of people, it’s not that they’re drastically short of pasture, it’s just so waterlogged so it’s a pasture utilisation issue,’’ manager Morgan Swap said.
One of the other factors behind the spike in palm kernel use was the extra income in farmers’ pockets. Suppliers were ‘‘a bit stretched’’ to deliver but demand might taper off in October. Swap said all supplements were in demand, including dried distiller grains and pellets.
Federated Farmers dairy group chairman Chris Lewis said farmers were not worried about the cost of the supplements - ‘‘they just want to get through calving’’.
‘‘This year’s calving is very different to anything I’ve experienced in the last 20 years. It’s a lot wetter, there’s less sunlight, and that changes the nutrient composition of pasture. When you’ve come through bad weather like we’ve had in the last few months, it’s not in your planning so you go to the handy option which is to truck in a little palm kernel for a couple of weeks. It puts you in a difficult spot.’’
Fonterra said in its latest Global Dairy Update that New Zealand milk collection was 2 per cent down in August this year compared with last, largely because of challenging wet weather. Fonterra is trying to persuade farmers to use less palm kernel because it says milk from grass-fed cows fetches a premium on world markets, and because PKE affects the composition of milk, making it less useful to convert into high value products.