Farmers seek no-strings-attached advice
Sheep and beef farmers are lacking independent advice without strings attached. New Zealand Grassland Association (NZGA) conference speaker David Pearce said dairy farming had an independent voice through Dairynz and its consulting officers provided top advice, but it was hard to get advice that wasn’t biased for the sheep and beef industry.
‘‘The Government did the agricultural industry a huge disfavour when it dismembered the Department of Agriculture.
‘‘Men that worked as advisers largely went out and worked as independent consultants. Now they are retiring and [sheep and beef farmers] are bereft of good independent advice.’’
Pearce, who’s family has a sheep and beef farm and two dairy farms, spoke to about 320 people at the NZGA conference in Whanganui, about the interface between science and pastoral farming.
The Pearce family farm northwest of Whanganui, on 2855 hectares, including dairy units milking 1700 cows, and a 1900ha coastal sheep and beef unit of 200 fattening heifers, 2000 breeding ewes and 500 dry dairy cows.
Pearce said industry good bodies in sheep and beef farming were not as close to farmers as many thought at first glance.
‘‘When farmers go to a field day they need to think and take note of who is sponsoring the day and consider if the presentations have a bias towards the sponsors.’’
He said farmers could tell who the sponsor was by a field day’s content.
‘‘You can see it many times and they line up speakers with that in mind.
‘‘Pearce said the levy paid to Dairy NZ was about $13.70 per cow each year, and farmers might be reluctant to pay for independent advice in the sheep and beef industry.
Pearce said farmers would get what they pay for in independent advice.
‘‘I pay a levy just once when a beef cattle beast is dead of about $5. I don’t pay that every year ... just once. So there is a big difference in the levies dairy farmers pay for research and development and consultancy as opposed to the sheep and beef farmers.’’
Pearce said half the trouble came through ‘‘farmers not putting their hand in their pocket’’ and not funding the sheep and beef industry well enough.
‘‘You don’t realise what you are missing when you don’t know.’’
He said most advice for sheep and beef farmers came from people who were going to earn dollars from the advice they were giving.
‘‘Farmers need to be aware of what they are not being told.
‘‘Sometimes important things are left out.
‘‘Farmers need to do their homework.’’
He said he had a great deal of trouble convincing a fertiliser representative they needed molybdenum on one of his farms.
‘‘He came round after we conducted trials. It is not a commercial product. There was plenty of advice on urea, and the big money drivers.’’
Pearce said pasture development, soil enrichment and organic matter development was a long haul and after 17 years there was still change.
Scientists were doing too much short-term research because of the funding model, he said.