New Zeland agriculture. Dairy farming's biggest threat.

Clive Dalton

 

Question 1.  

 What’s the biggest national threat facing the New Zealand dairy industry in the next 5-10 years?  The low milksolids payout due to a world surplus of milk powder is the wrong answer. The correct answer is farm staff literacy and numeracy, as it’s now recognised that 50% of new recruits entering farming cannot effectively read or write to a level where they can keep records or follow a manual.  They also cannot do basic maths or measure accurately. They have never learned their times tables!

So calculating the volume of a silage pit (LxBxH), then knocking off 5% waste, and working out the length of a grazing area of 1.7ha if one side is 50m are complete mysteries, as is mixing a 7% teat spray solution.  And don’t ever mention fractions.

When at The Waikato Polytechnic I must have wasted hours trying to teach these basic maths. Thank goodness for metrics, calculators with a percentage and a square root button, if you could students to understand where they would be useful.

Question 2.  Who is going to fix this appalling situation?  Be very afraid, as the answer is ‘nobody knows’.

It’s an unbelievable situation, and instead of schools being able to solve the problem, they have to live with it, and look the other way at the end of the year when year 13 students leave for the last time, heading hopefully for further training.  

None of the teachers I talk to are happy about this situation, and are adamant that the latest education reforms will do nothing to solve it.  The Minister of Education keeps telling us that she wants every Kiwi child to have access to a good education.  Farmers wonder if they’ll live long enough to see it happen.

When I ask teachers for a solution, they point out that no school has the time, the resources or the money to fix things at their level.  You cannot hold back 15-17 year-olds, and put the hard word on them to do extra work till they become literate and numerate as happened in the old days.  This would now be classed as harassment!

Blame

So all I hear is blame!  High school teachers blame intermediate schools, which then blame primary schools, whose teachers tell me the problem starts in the home, with kids arriving at school with no vocabulary and never having seen books or have had stories read to them.  All agree that there just isn’t enough money spent in primary schools on support to fix the problem there.  These young folk are not dummies – the education system has let them down.

Old teachers bemoan the poor literacy and numeracy of new graduates finishing Universities with degrees in education.  How do they get accepted?

Something very odd going on  

With modern technology and social media, there have never been so many words written by young folk. So how can they be constantly ‘on line’ texting, tweeting, face booking and emailing and not be able to read and write English needed for the workforce? They are all keyboard wizards, so don’t need pens or handwriting, and they are not scared to learn new things by trial and error.

The problem is that the industry is full of labels and manuals written in technical English that even the literate can struggle with at times. This situation won’t change, due to legal requirements covering manufacturers, to protect them from mis-interpretation of directions and being sued.

The million-dollar question.   

How long can farming and other trades wait till all this education disaster is sorted?  The honest answer is that they cannot.

What are current dairy farmers doing to fix things, as they are the ones copping the result?  Not a lot I’d suggest at present, with the CTU estimating that only 50% of farmers spend any money on staff training, and few pay more for staff with training qualifications.

The solution is very clear to me, if the Minister of Primary Industry wants export earnings doubled by 2025, and needing 50,000 new recruits, the Prime Minister needs to give him a boost in the caucus pecking order so he has the clout with the Minister of Finance to pour some serious money into the Primary ITO as a major priority as we speak.

Then dairy farmers, Federated Farmers, Fonterra and other dairy companies, DairyNZ, LIC and everybody with an interest in the dairy industry has to push madly to pressure Treasury on behalf of the PrimaryITO – and pour more of their money into the pot.

 Primary ITO

The PrimaryITO are the only ones who have an overall view of what’s needed and who really understand how to fix things urgently, to stop all the duplication and waste by so many education providers, and to get modern technology into the teaching business pronto.

We don’t want any more inquiries, scoping groups, research and bureaucratic diversions.  The Minister of Primary Industry has to solve the problem by supercharging the Primary ITO, as the Minister of Education clearly can’t help the farming industry, and neither can the Minister of Innovation.

The fall-back solution in the very short term is more immigrant labour, but that’s not the answer as training them brings another set of cultural and religious challenges, which I suggest is not yet on the Minister’s priority job list. 

The other solution is more technology.   More robotics are on their way! 

Who will operate dairy farms in future?  Humans or robots?

Agricultural history in New Zealand. Herd testers. Alex Henderson

By Dr Clive Dalton

Alex Henderson

Alex Henderson was born on the family farm, called ‘Barelees’ near Forde in Northumberland, 30 miles from the Scottish Border where he worked as a shepherd for four years after he left school. To earn some money, as farmers’ sons only got their keep but never proper wages, he went to work for six months on the dairy farm run by the Edinburgh University Veterinary School, milking their herd of 40 Ayrshire cows. 

  

He didn’t like the dormitory arrangements living with the young students, so he got a job at Market Weighton in the East Riding of Yorkshire, on a farm milking a herd of Jersey cows. 

Alex was 24 by this time, and had a desire to travel.  Canada was a possibility, but a friend who had moved there advised him to go elsewhere, as the winters were cold resulting in long periods without work.

Herd testers needed in NZ 

While in Yorkshire he saw an advertisement in the British Farmers Weekly for herd testers in New Zealand.  He put in an application which was successful, subject to the required health tests which he had in Leeds.  All went well, and when he wrote home to tell the family that he was leaving for New Zealand, he had the one and only letter from his father (which he still has) asking if he realised how far away he was going!

  

The Captain Cook

Farewell from Glasgow

So on  July 13 1954, Alex set sail from Glasgow for New Zealand on the ‘Captain Cook’ with 1000 immigrants aged 17-30, segregated on board, with females forward and males aft.  But Alex remembers that this didn’t stop them having a good trip!

There were 42 other single men going to New Zealand as herd testers, all of them from farming backgrounds.  They all had a memorable voyage, sailing from the Atlantic into the Pacific via the Panama Canal, and a memorable stop at Pitcairn, where the ship stood off while the visiting passengers were landed in longboats.

Wellington arrival

They arrived in Wellington at 8am on 17 August 1954, with only those going to local jobs being allowed off the ship. Those going North had to remain on board till 4pm when it was time to board the ‘overnight limited stopping train’ to head north leaving at 6pm.  Alex said that the authorities must have taken this precaution incase any new arrivals did a runner. Alex remembers that the train was packed, and it was a fight at stops like Taumarunui where passengers were got off to get a pie and cup of tea before the train moved on.

The biggest group of future herd testers got off at Frankton Junction to work for the Auckland Herd Improvement Association, but Alex and his six herd testing mates stayed on the train for Auckland, arriving there at 6pm on Friday 18^th August.

They were allowed a day to recover, spending a night crammed into small hotel, and finally arrived by bus at Whangarei to be met by Mr Taylor who had arranged their accommodation in a local boarding house.

Start work in Northland

Because the herd-testing season had already started in Northland a few weeks before the new staff arrived, there were no jobs available, so Alex and the others got work on local dairy farms. Alex worked on a farm at Kaiwaka where part of the condition of employment was that he had the morning off when the herd tester arrived, to get some practice using a pipette to learn how to suck up (by mouth!) Sulphuric acid and amyl alcohol for the Gerber butterfat test, and see what was involved in the process.

Kawakawa

Alex stayed on that farm until the 1^st of November, when a herd testing vacancy became available at Kawakawa.  He was met there by a supervisor and taken to a farm for the first night to start testing where the 30 cows all had names. He tested the herd evening and morning, and had his work checked by the supervisor who had also stayed on the farm. He decided Alex was competent so was to be on his own.

Horse and cart 

Horse and cart ready for the day's action

Alex collected his horse, cart with rubber wheels, and all the gear needed, before he went on his way to the next farm. The gear included buckets, lids, a hand-cranked centrifuge, Sulphuric acid and amyl alcohol in large containers, butyrometer tubes for fat testing, scales, bottles for samples, crates and much more. A cover was provided for all this gear in the cart, but not for the driver Alex said.

After the first test on his own, Alex was told not to tip the next morning’s milk as the supervisor returned to check the work. Everything was found to be in order, so he was given a map and list of 26 farms for the month.  He never saw a supervisor for the next 2 years, and only contacted him by phone if necessary. As it was November, Alex worked through until December 23^rd, and then had time off until January 3^rd. From then on, work was continuous until the end of March as February was a short month.

Walk-through milking shed

Walk-through sheds

Milking was done in double-up walk-through sheds, and on his first farm there were 120 Jersey cows to be milked and recorded.  This was a much bigger farming operation than Alex had worked on in England, and he said that he was amazed at the large amount of milk produced which had to be weighed, sampled and tested for butter fat night and morning with the two tests added together.

The milk was separated on the farm, where the cream went to the factory and the skim milk was fed to pigs, which were kept on all dairy farms and added greatly to their income.

Alex says he worked one week each month on a back block at Mototau with no telephone, and sometimes no power, so the herd was milked by hand. These were mostly Maori farms and again, and Alex said they couldn’t do enough for you – welcoming the tester into their home and Alex was treated as one of the family. He worked in the Kawakawa group for 2 years which stretched from Towai in the south to Kaikohe in the north, Kawakawa being the centre.

 Challenges of roads and weather

Transport challenges facing herd testers

 Alex said it was mostly metal roads and has travelled them since by car wondering how he did it, but others were similarly employed. There were floods in the spring and droughts in the summer. Alex’s largest herd was 120 and the smallest 20 cows – all of them making a living and raising a family. It was the people he met who made the job.

Alex left herd testing to work on a dairy farm at Maromaku, (near Towai) for two years – again, the family made the job so satisfying, and treated me as their immigrant son. He remained in contact with them during all his years in NZ, spending every Christmas with them, and now continues in contact with their extended family.

Alex remembers the home-made pikelets for afternoon teas, and he knew that once he started on his round of 26 farms, he’d have 25 roast dinners ahead of him for the month.  Some farmers took the opportunity when the herd tester arrived for them all to go to the movies in the local town.  One night he remembers telling the farmer’s wife who was helping with the milking that he was going to the movies at 7.30 with a neighbouring farmer. So she rushed home to cook an early tea, and even ran a hot bath for him!

No TV

There was no TV in those days, so Alex played cards every night, with 500 being the most popular game.  The farmers and their families always enjoyed a bit of new company so there were plenty of late nights.  Herd testers were a key part of the farming community and their social life included most events including Christmas parties. Lifelong friendships were made.

Alex did two seasons at Kawakawa and then worked on farms before going back on the Rangitoto to England in 1958 for one year, returning to New Zealand on the Rangitani in May 1959 where he got a job as a builder’s labourer at Pukekohe for six weeks. 

Alex then started herd testing again on the 1 August in the Pukekohe Group where he did 1959/60 in Pukekohe, 1960/61 in Pokeno/Mangatauwhiri, 1961/62 in Orini, 1962/63 in Te Kawa, 1963/64 in Piopio, and 1964/65 in Waihi.   Alex said that he certainly saw a real variety of sheds and farmers – all of whom provided memorable hospitality.

Herringbone sheds

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When Alex left for the UK in 1965 there were no herringbone sheds, but by the time he returned in 1966 there had been massive changes away from walk-through to herringbone sheds. Herringbone milking sheds had been developed at Gordonton, and had become very popular and made the job of milking and herd testing much easier for all involved. They spread rapidly through the country and after 1979, Alex noted big changes where herds were increasing in size; farmers could no longer make a good living from 20-120 cows on a 100-acre farm. 

  

After Alex returned to New Zealand in 1966, he returned to the Mark family in Ngaruawahia (where he’d had a base since 1959) and worked for the Hurricane Wire Company in Te Rapa, Hamilton. During this time he met Ken Stone of the Auckland Herd Improvement Association in Hamilton at the Te Rapa racecourse, who invited him to return to herd testing. Alex was interested in training for the newly expanding Artificial Breeding (AB) side of dairy farming, but Selwyn Sheaf the AHIA manager was keen to have Alex back herd testing. 

Photo shows modern (2013) herringbone miking shed, with 30 sets of cups.  After about 50 sets, farmers today would then opt for a rotary - with 80 bail rotaries now common on large 1000 cow herds 

 Alex returned to the LIC in 1966 and worked as a supervisor for 14 years, with trips home in 1969, 1972, 1978 and 1984. His last 10 years of employment were spent as Weigh Station Manager at Morrinsville.  This involved training new herd testers on the farm, keeping a check on their results based on the composite sample from each farm, and dealing with any issues that may arise.

Herd testers conference and ball 

Testers and AHIA staff all dressed up for the Conference

Each year, the Auckland Herd Improvement Association held its annual herd testers’ ball, followed the next day by the herd testers conference, held at their London Street office organised by Selwyn Sheaf. At the end of the conference, the new testing areas were handed out –which Alex says always created a lot of interest to see who got what.  Some testers wanted to swap clients as they had developed such friendships with them, but that was not allowed.

Women in dairy farming

Alex said that looking back, 1954-58 when he travelled Northland with a horse and cart herd testing were some of the best years of his life, due to the warm hospitality and the friendship he experienced on New Zealand farms.  He said that the calibre of the women in dairying was fantastic, and the hard work they contributed to the dairy industry, as well as running a busy house and rearing a family, was never fully appreciated.  They would even wash and iron the herd tester’s clothes!

Alex retired in 1990 and said that New Zealand was a country of great opportunity if you worked hard.  Alex died on 14 July, 2017 aged 88.

Agricultural history in New Zealand. Herd testers. Tony and Marion Wrench.

By Dr Clive Dalton

Interviewed August 2004

Tony Wrench grew up in Worcestershire in England where he lived on a farm and was always interested in Jersey cows.  He used to write to the New Zealand Jersey Association and they’ send him information and photos which fed his  appetite for the breed.

Then he saw an advertisement in the Farmers Weekly newspaper for jobs in New Zealand working as herd testers. 

RMS Atlantis (photo from Internet)

The job was advertised as working 25 days per month with good pay and travel to New Zealand provided.  So after applying and being accepted for a job, Tony came to New Zealand on the Atlantis in March 1950 when he was 22 years old.

  About another dozen young men with farming backgrounds came on the same ship and Tony had very vivid memories of their arrival in Wellington.  

 He like other potential employees travelled up to Frankton junction by overnight train, and then proceeded to the offices of the Auckland Herd Improvement Association to be addressed by the manager Mr Selwyn Sheaf.

Back to Ohura

But then, immediately after this, Tony was on the train again going back down the line to Ohura in the King Country, to live and work with Doug Watts for six weeks while he learned what New Zealand dairy farming was all about, and how herd testing was part of it. Following this, Tony went to Claudelands in Hamilton for two weeks practical herd testing training.

Tony stayed in the Ohura area for two years and he had kept a letter from Selwyn Sheaf offering him a job in the Waikato with pay of ten pounds, one shilling and three pence per week and a truck provided to do his work.  This was a great improvement as at Ohura he had a Clydesdale horse called Phil and a cart with all his gear on board.  He was sad to leave the Ohura community as he had made many friends.

 The process of herd testing was first to arrive at the farm with all the gear in good time to meet the farmer and set up to test the evening milking.   Then was the job of settling in to stay the night to test the following morning’s milk before going on to the next farm on his circuit.  

Tony Wrench getting help to transfer milk into bucket for weighing. Note the walk-through milking bails. 

Some of the cows were branded but most had a name which had to be entered on the shed book. Tony remembered visiting a Maori farmer in Kennedy’s bay who named his cows from Greek mythology. Tony tested on a round of 27 herds and tested one each day a month.

The routine was for milk from each cow to be put in a test bucket, which was then lifted on to a spring balance and weighed. After that a sample was taken from it before the bucket was tipped into the vat.  The fat content was worked with the Gerber test where milk and sulphuric acid were mixed in a special tube, and after centrifuging; the fat content could be read off.  The herd testing offices were then in Wesley Chambers in Victoria street in Hamilton.

Like all herd testers, Tony said that his herd testing visits were valued greatly by the farmer and family for social reasons, as land was still in the early development stage in Ohura with bush being cleared. Hospitality was good and with no TV, chat and cards were the order of the evenings.

When Tony first started work, cowsheds were four double-up walk-through sheds, but by 1954, the herringbone shed had taking over almost completely. 

The  Auckland Herd Improvement head office

Office staff at the Hamilton LIA head office in London street

Tony met his wife Marion who worked on handling all the herd records in the Auckland Herd Improvement Association office in London Street.  They got married in 1954.  Les Jane was involved with Selwyn Sheaf in managing the herd testing programme in the region.

Tony said that Artificial Breeding (AB) was racing ahead as herd testing progressed, as herd testing was the means by which good cows were identified to be mated to top bulls to produce even better bulls for farmers through AB.

Marion Wrench’s early life was spent with her father working at the dairy factory at Turua near Thames before moving to Hamilton. After she left school at Hamilton Tech she went to work in the Herd Improvement Offices, and she remembers when the office moved from Wesley Chambers in Victoria Street in Hamilton to the new offices in London Street.

There were 50-60 people – mainly women, who worked there with Mrs Baker and Mrs Yates in charge. Marion said they could be tough but generally not too bad! A major bit of progress was when Arthur Ward introduced accounting machines and adapted them to help calculate fat percentage.  These were Burroughs calculating machines which were well advanced for the time.

Marion remembers having fun with other young members of the staff who had parties in the staff room from time to time. They even had an annual trip to Waihi beach.  

The herd testers’ ball held on July 31^st was the highlight of each year before the herd testing season started in earnest.  It was always held in the Peachgrove CAC hall.

You can see from the photo below that herd testers certainly enjoyed each other's company when they could get together before the start of the next season.

2014
The late Tony Wrench ended up working at the LIC headquarters at Newstead in the AB equipment store before his retirement.

New Zealand agricultural history. Herd testing. Jim Crawford

By Dr Clive Dalton

Family farm too small 

Former herd testers - Jim Crawford (right) and Alex Henderson

 Jim Crawford came from a farming family in Ireland, but there was little future for farmer’s sons who got their keep, their clothes and no pay.  Jim’s brother was on the farm but there was no room for both of them, so Jim who was living in Bangor, County Down was training to be a supermarket manager.

Looking for a new future, Jim and his brother got interested in New Zealand about 1958, as Jim’s father had lived in New Zealand from 1922 to 1926 during the time of the depression- and as a result had to return home.

First class cabins only

After finding out about passages to New Zealand and work prospects, they found out from the New Zealand Shipping Company, that there was only two bookings left if they wanted to sail at this time, and they were single first class cabins at a cost of £190 each!  Before leaving to emigrate, they had to go through all the necessary health checks, but Jim’s brother was turned down by the New Zealand Immigration Department.  Undaunted, they still decided to come and pay their own fare. 

SS Rangitata

So they left from London’s Tilbury Docks on the NZ Shipping Company ‘Rangitata’ for the five-week voyage to New Zealand via the Canary Islands, Curacao, the Panama Canal and Pitcairn Island.

SS Rangitata passing through the Panama Canal (photo John Wallace)

Single rooms in first class Jim says was luxury, but they spent most of their time in tourist class where there was much more fun, as tourist class passengers couldn’t visit them on first class.  It was a five-week voyage arriving in Wellington on 4 August 1960, to a cool morning at 6am.   There was nobody to meet them so after a day or so they boarded the  ‘limited overnighter’ train arriving at Frankton Junction at 6am to be met by a retired Irish farmer from Morrinsville., who had been a friend of their father’s.

Rangitata irst class dining room (photo John Wallace)

 Okaihau

 After a week or so they went to stay with their uncle at Okaihau where they worked on his farm helping with milking and other chores.  Things didn’t go too well after Jim was reprimanded by the Uncle for wasting water when washing the yard. Jim suggested the Uncle and not the yard would get the next wash!

Morrinsville farm job

Then Jim, leaving his brother up North, got a phone call about a job to milk 180 cows in two sheds on a 700-acre farm on Piako road near Morrinsville. Part of the farm was still being developed and was in Titree.  Jim really didn’t have all that much experience of farming but took the job, it was a bit of a shock to get up at 4am and milk for two and a half hours at either end of the day.

He was paid £8 per week with board provided, and worked there for over year before getting a job offer up north near his brother in a butchery for £10 a week, where he stayed with his brother until his brother got married and Jim looked for other work.

Herd testers wanted

Herd testing jobs were being advertised at the end of 1963 and Jim applied and got one to test herds in the area.  He was trained by Allan Bird at one evening milking, followed by the next morning milking, and that was it, so Allan must have been happy with his abilities.  Jim was on his own.

His round had 24 farms with herds of 24-180 cows in the Waipapa area, most of them identified by their names. They were mainly Jerseys but then Friesians started to be introduced.  He was provided with a Ferguson tractor and trailer to carry all his testing equipment from one farm to the other : they were certainly not designed for speed.

Speeding Fergie

Harry Ferguson's famous tractor

 

On one occasion Jim got a great scare when he was rushing from a farm at Pakaraka and had to be at his next farm at Awanui (some distance away) by 1pm – so he was running late.  Going down a hill outside Okaihau he put the Fergie out of gear to gain speed passing cars and buses on his way. 

It was not a good decision, as all his gear (including 5 gallon containers of sulphuric acid and 5 gallons of amyl alcohol), and delicate glassware were rattling around in the trailer, and at that speed, the Fergie’s gearbox was not designed to get back into gear. Jim didn’t repeat the exercise!  He said that despite his worst fears, not a thing was broken.

Staying the night with each farmer was always a pleasant social occasion. Jim enjoyed staying on farms as the hospitality was so good with no TV and only the radio – so instead people talked to each other!   Cards were also a popular game at the time.

The pressure was always on after the morning milking, to complete all the work of testing each cow’s sample, writing up the records and leaving a copy for the farmer. Then each day a composite sample had to be taken and sent to the lab to make sure that his testing was accurate, as farmers were paid on the butterfat content.  The Northland Herd Improvement had its HQ in Whangarei for all the herd testing north of the Auckland Harbour bridge .

Physically demanding job

The work of herd testing was physically demanding as before milk meters came along, milk from each cow was weighed in stainless steel buckets with the milk from each cow. It then had to be lifted on to a Salter spring balance for weighing before being tipped into the separator to collect the cream for the factory.  After each milking and carrying out the Gerber fat test, all the glassware had to be washed and dried in preparation for the next milking.

Graham Platt was Jim’s boss along with Bill Harry. There were few female herd testers at the time and everyone was so busy that they rarely met. They only heard from the farmer who had been there to test the previous month. It was part of their training not to make any comment on any herds’ records to other farmers.  So everyone looked forward to their Annual Conference and Herd Testers’ ball.  Jim also served as a delegate for the Herd Testers’ Union a year

Up to all the tricks

There were some smart farmers around, and herd testers had to be wide-awake to all their tricks, as their aim was to boost the fat produced by each cow to improve their sale prospects, especially if they were pedigree breeders whose main market was selling bulls. This was before AB was in common use.

Reading a Gerber tube to assess fat content of milk sample

Jim had a regular testing routine in the Moromaku Valley of starting at the top and moving from farm to farm finishing at the bottom.  He got the message (probably from farming neighbours) that one farmer at the bottom always saved up good pasture a day or so before the test to boost the fat levels, so Jim phoned him the night before and told him (due to unforeseen circumstances!) that he would be there to test the next afternoon and the following morning. The farmer phoned back to say this would not be convenient, and he had contacted Jim’s boss in Whangarei about it.  Jim’s boss agreed with Jim and the test went on – with lower fat levels this time!

Some farmers fed meal before herd testing and some used to strip the cow after the machine was removed, and then even wait a while and strip her again.  This meant that you could be still in the milking shed at 9pm.

Breeds of dairy cattle

The Jersey breed - cow typical of 1950-1960 model

 
Jerseys were the main breed but were phased out the last of the dairy Shorthorn herds, but the big change came with the introduction of Friesians, and veterinarian John Sterling was the first to do this on his Ohaeawai farm.  John also used to call for help when any tom cat needed to be deprived of its manhood, in those days held down a gumboot!





Herd testing was not a full year’s job and if it was dry summer in Northland, which was common, testers could be unemployed from February through to July, so they had to find other work, generally on farms during haymaking.

Share milking

As well as herd-testing in Northland, Jim went  to 20% lower-order share-milking near Waipapa with 50-60 cows, but had to break the contract due to ill-health. After working for some time at Matakohe Store, he returned to herd-testing.

Pigs

In 1967 after herd testing for 5 years in Northland, Jim headed back to Northern Ireland for a working holiday and to spend time with ageing parents. While there he worked at the Pig Progeny Testing Station at Greenmount Agricultural College in Antrim, gaining valuable knowledge of pig husbandry. 

NZ Dairy Company and Fonterra

Returning to New Zealand in 1969 (now married to Margaret), Jim hoped to be able to eventually purchase a piggery and managed several pig farms with that goal in mind – unfortunately a serious bout of leptospirosis make that impossible, and 37 years employment with NZDC (now Fonterra)  on the laboratory side of things followed.

New Zealand animal health. Concerns over use in dairy farming.

By Dr Clive Dalton

           

When Britain’s chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies warns that the increasing resistance of bacteria to the most powerful antibiotics available equals the threat of terrorism and climate change to the UK public, then dairy farmers in New Zealand need to take notice – and action.  She describes it as catastrophic, setting human health back 200 years.

The UK chief pharmacist says progress has been made in hospitals and by GPs to cut down risks of increasing resistance, but antibiotic use has been rising in animal and fish husbandry, and this is thought to account for 50% of antibiotics used in UK where overall bacterial resistance in humans is increasing.

As a major exporting nation, especially to Europe and America where they have started to tighten up antibiotic use, we need to follow suit with a vengeance – but there’s little sign of it.

Just count all cows that have been dried off this season using ‘blanket’ Dry Cow Therapy (DCT), where the whole herd gets a tube of antibiotic up each teat whether they need it or not.  It’s a major money earner for vet practices at around $25/cow.

DCT is part of current best practice under SmartSAMM, which is the new version of the old SAMM Plan or ‘Seasonal Approach to Managing Mastitis’. Kiwi GPs I have talked to have never heard of DCT.

We’ve had a Mastitis Advisory Committee of the country’s experts for over 30 years, and it seems to me that all this has achieved is more antibiotics used in dairying and not less.

The trouble is that when a new wonder drug appears, as happened with anthelmintics to kill worms as well as antibiotics, everybody makes money – the manufacturers, veterinarians, sellers of the products and farmers. 

Nobody dare say – hang on a minute, how long will this bonanza last before some of the enemy survives the bombardment and continue breeding?  Some brave folk questioned worm drenches 40 years ago but got rubbished. No new antibiotics have been developed since 1987.

When at the Waikato Polytech, I tried to convince my dairy students that the industry was not about hooning on bikes, spraying weeds, hosing effluent and slapping cups on teats.  I tried to stress that it was the ‘neutraceutical’ or human (especially infant) health food business.  I totally failed.  My sermons were greeted with ripe expletives, especially after they’d been back home and told their bosses.

I had 11 different empty packs of DCT and we visited vet clinics to talk to the chief veterinarian about how they approved what farmer should use.  When we left, students joked that their bosses regularly bought the cheapest, which they had to administer while under pressure at the last milking.  So cutting corners on the textbook asceptic practice was inevitable.

Boffins are not keen to look ahead if the road seems too difficult – and it’s worse now the way research is funded.  Most don’t think of issues beyond their retirement age, and ignore future generational problems and biological time.  If they did, how come we have serious drench resistant worms after only 50 years, and complete ignorance of what happens when anthelmintic chemicals and antibiotics get into the soil?

Kiwi boffins after reading papers at International conferences return to report that New Zealand is up with ‘the world’s best practice’ in mastitis control.  How pathetic is that?  As a country that lives or dies by exports to an increasingly sophisticated market, we shouldn’t be up with them; we should be light years ahead!

Then we skite about only 11% mastitis in our national herd compared with around 25% in the US.  That’s another daft comfort blanket, as our 11% is achieved by using all the antibiotic weapons in the current SmartSAMM arsenal. SmartSAMM is grossly out of date!

The other defence is that there’s no peer-reviewed evidence showing major antibiotic resistance in mastitis bugs currently found in New Zealand.  Yeagh Right - but who is looking?

This won’t do in 2013.  If current researchers and experts can’t deal with the urgent need to reduce antibiotics in the dairy industry, then let’s find some who can. We need to go back to the calf in utero to find out what is stuffing up the development of its natural immune system – something is.  And what about genetics?  They seem to have low priority in veterinary training.

If there isn’t rapid change on Kiwi dairy farms, then our customers pushing their trolleys around the supermarkets of the world, especially those shopping for baby formula, will bring about change.

Food concerns have changed dramatically in the last 3 years.  Just mention ‘Chinese infant formula’!  Blanket DCT would be the last thing they’d appreciate, and the acronym DCT could cause even bigger panic than DCD.

However, there’s a small and increasing number of dairy farmers, especially women, getting antibiotics out of their dairies.  But they’re keeping well below the parapet to avoid pressure from their dairy companies and veterinarians, suggesting that whatever they are using cannot work, hasn’t been approved, and avoiding antibiotics will compromise animal welfare.

Those overseas supermarket trolleys will have the last say, when they roll right on past the NZ dairy product displays.