Seeking the Sweet Spot: People, Planet and Profit

Duration: 8:03

CARRIE GREEN:

George and Sharon Moss are Waikato dairy farmers, working hard to get their farming operation as environmentally efficient as possible. They're focused on reducing their nitrogen leaching and greenhouse gas emissions, while maintaining farm profitability. So how do they measure results? And what are their top tips for keeping emissions low? Let's take a look.

GEORGE MOSS:

When we started off farming 40 years ago, there was a perfect correlation between profit and production. The environment wasn't even in the discussion. And the thinking at the time then, and I can remember this, was all about feeding the world.

The world has changed substantially since then. We're increasingly aware that the planet is under pressure. We do know, and science supports, that climate has changed in the past and the planet has warmed up and cooled down in the past, but it's never done it in such a short timeframe as what we're seeing now. So what used to happen over millennia is literally happening over decades. This is the challenge of our generation, both in terms of trying to slow it down, as well as adapt our farming systems and our lives to live with the impacts that are coming.

Look, I do trust science and part of that is following the numbers. For us, what that means is the decision-making becomes less stressful. Once you follow the numbers and you believe in that process, there's a logic to it. There's two numbers that you absolutely need to know to give you a direction of travel. One is, know what your greenhouse gas number is, particularly what your methane number is, because that will be the biggest component for you. But the other component that you need to know is what your current level of profitability is because that will also help you set a direction of travel.

We know for an absolute fact for many farmers in New Zealand, there is an opportunity to both reduce their greenhouse gases and lift their profitability. And so once you understand where you sit within that matrix, then you can actually understand which decisions you need to make. So it's a benchmarking exercise, it's understanding what your starting point is, and then probably with support from a rural professional or somebody who knows about this stuff, putting a plan in around that.

There's a number of ways that we can actually get hold of the greenhouse gas number. Probably the most perfect way is to use Overseer, which is the industry tool. It's absolutely accepted that no model is absolutely perfect, but that gives one a real good handle on both the sources of the gases and their various make-ups.

We're fortunate now in the dairy industry that most of the milk supply companies will actually provide an environmental report, which will have a large greenhouse gas profile component to it. The Fonterra one will actually color code your risk areas and your opportunity for improvement and gives you a bell-shaped curve of where you sit with some of your peers.

DairyNZ also has a tool now which you can go online and use, which will give you your methane, not your total greenhouse gas profile, but will give you your methane from livestock profile. And the DairyNZ one also gives you a spot as to where you are relative to other farmers in the region. It is definitely a space that is moving and it's a space that will actually improve, and the reports will improve as time goes on.

For us, we are very much in the early stages of managing our greenhouse gases down. The things that we're absolutely concentrating on is, one is the stocking rate, resisting the temptation to push up the stocking rate. We're continuing to look to further reduce the amount of purchased feeds. We use urease inhibitors now as a matter of course, and we've actually reduced the annual amount of nitrogen we've used down from about 130 units to 80 units last year. We are very aware now and actually monitor soil temperature and soil moisture to make sure when we apply that nitrogen, it goes on at the right time and in the right place. We use proof of placement, so we can actually monitor how much N has gone on each paddock each year and that gives us a real focus to understand which paddocks are underperforming and why.

Pushing really hard on the genetics. So, we are using sexed semen to try to get the best possible genetic heifer calves on the ground, and get a very high index herd in as short a possible time. Absolute no tolerance for cows that aren't efficient. So if they're not producing well or got good indexes, it's ‘bye bye girly’, down the track. And we also do cull the heifer replacements quite heavily, to try to get those genetics there really quickly.

We actually have kept our lactation length fairly short and tight, but still chase very high performance per cow. One farm dried off on the 27th of March, whereas normally it would dry off end of April, early May, and the other one dried off early April.

People would criticise us for saying, "Well, look, it was a big milk price season. You could have actually milked on. You could have purchased more feed and pushed on." So greenhouse gases were part of that thought process. You know, what was it going to do to our profile? So that's the absolute truth. We will take some stick for that though. No question about it.

One of the fundamental things that the human condition doesn't handle is change. For the new people starting off, this is part of their world, so they will live in that world quite well and understand that world and do what it takes. For the older ones of us, it is change and potentially very scary change, but we've been through it before and we'll come through this. And those who come through it will be in a very good place. There's no question about that.

CARRIE GREEN:

So, let's sum that up. George started by working out his farm's annual greenhouse gas emissions and his profitability. Once he worked those two numbers out, he started looking for ways to hit the sweet spot of lower than average emissions and higher than average profit. He's focusing on making genetic improvements and increasing individual animal performance. He keeps lactations relatively short and is considering further lowering stock numbers. He's cutting down the amount of purchased feeds and applies nitrogen fertiliser only where it's needed and when the conditions are right. And he always uses urease inhibitors.

So, let's see how these actions have impacted on George's numbers.

Methane and nitrous oxide emissions have dropped, as has nitrogen leaching. Good outcomes for the climate and freshwater. At the same time, the farm has continued to operate profitably. It's still early days, and it's still a challenge, especially in seasons when the grass just keeps on growing or completely stops. With methane emissions directly tied to how much an animal eats, feed management becomes even more important.

George and Sharon are tracking their numbers closely and are developing a plan for how they can keep on top of things. You can find out more about measuring, managing, and reducing agricultural greenhouse gas emissions online.

www.agmatters.nz

www.hewakaekenoa.nz