Agricultural education in NZ. Improving farmers' image of farmers

By Dr Clive Dalton

 NZ 2025 export targets

Fifty thousand new people needed for the agricultural industry to achieve our export targets by 2015 says the Minister of Agriculture and  Forestry by 2015.   He is quoted as saying that ‘we have got to get out and sell the primary industry story better than we have done.’  Indeed, we'd all agree but who are the ‘we’?

For a start, the bureaucrats and politicians should keep well out of it, as they couldn’t sell anything that would attract young folk into farming.  Look how they have gutted agricultural research, and offering scientists who move locations two years guaranteed salary. Isn’t that fantastic  - two whole years!

 School visits and careers' evenings

When at the Waikato Polytechnic (which now has no farming courses), I used to visit schools to talk to students about a farming career, and go to special careers evenings, along with other organisations pushing their barrows.

I learned one very clear lesson – the biggest problem getting in the way of promoting farming as a career is ‘FARMERS’.  Farmers criticise school careers teachers, who also handle problem students and slow learners.  I felt sorry for them, as in their tiny offices they had a wall full of box files starting with ‘Army’ and ending with ‘Zoo keepers’ – each organisation expected them to push their particular careers.  They had no resources and even less help.

I could pick farm kids arriving at careers evenings with their parents, and when asked if they were going to do some farm training, their guaranteed reply was that ‘farming sucks’!  When asked who told them that, they always said ‘Dad did’.  It was a losing battle, as I’d hoped these students would be good promoters of farming to their peers.  Now that idea did suck.

The Minister’s ‘we’ to find the fifty thousand had better start nutting out now how to change the farmers’ ‘image’ of themselves, as that’s where the problem starts and ends.  Forget everything else in the meantime.

 Draw a farmer

Ask any primary school child to draw a farmer, and you’ll see what I mean, and then work out where they got that image?  I bet the farmer is a he, and is not looking at his iPad in the paddock.  He’ll be in gumboots and a black singlet for sure. Fred Dag didn’t help, neither did Murray Ball, Edna or David Henshaw’s Jock.  Note the farmers in TV drench adverts during test matches, and the dirty udders cups are put on during TV news clips about dairying issues.

My biggest failure was trying to change some basic images with dairy students on our Polytech Herd Manager’s course, which was a cracker which we had to kill when the NZQA dumbing down Units came in.

The health food business

I started by banning the word ‘shed’, on the basis that sheds are where tractors and bikes are kept, calves are reared and rubbish stored.  Milk is harvested in a ‘farm dairy’ or even a ‘milking parlour’ because it’s a ‘human health food’ or ‘neutraceutical’. 

So ‘milkers’, (many in the Waikato are called ‘hairies’) were to be ‘milk harvesters’, and when asked what their job was when they went to town on a Friday night, they told enquires that they were milk harvesters, and their business cards (which the boss was to provide for them) showed the details:

•  Joe Blogs
•  Senior Milk Harvester, or Assistant Milk Harvester 
•  Meadow Lee Farms Ltd, 333 Whatnot Road 
•  Dairyville 
•   Phone number and email
•  Location map on reverse side
•  Motivational slogan such as - ‘We harvest and export nature’s best health food to the world’.

One student actually got himself some business cards and followed my advice, and he said it was amazing the improved response when he shopped in town and handed over his card.  He said the assistant called him ‘Sir’!

Students arrived at class in spring with hands like 40 grit sandpaper, with green stain embedded deep in the cracks and open sores that never healed.  I used to tell them to keep well away from their girlfriends till well after calving.  It took a long time for it to be OK to wear milking gloves in those days.

 Clean overalls each day

I suggested that employers provide clean overalls for every milking, and they pay for the laundering done commercially.  I even suggested that they even milk in white overalls like we pommie students were made to do under the eye of a ‘dairyman’.

 Farmer comments

You can imagine how this went down with employers, whose reported comments at the next class were unprintable. I was simply trying to get students (and their bosses) to be proud of what they did – harvesting the world’s most important health food that was fed to infants, invalids and seniors because of their special nutritional needs.  As I said – the idea was a total wipeout.

Employers killed it all because they didn’t believe in an image change themselves. This is why the Minister’s ‘we’ has to start with farmers.  Don’t waste any more time or money goading farm trainers and teaching institutions, with so many different outfits competing with each other all over the country. It’s a dog’s breakfast that will need a big sort out before long.

Meeting t' Baldersdale bull

Farming in the North Pennine Dales
By Eric Wilson

My next encounter with a bull was in Baldersdale, one of those smaller offshoot valleys that branched off Teesdale but didn’t go anywhere except to a few isolated farms. The farms were more a way of life than a means of making a fortune, most of the occupants having secondary work to improve the cash income, especially in winter.

The milking plant I went to install at one of the smaller holdings was for seven cows and was essentially to make milking easier night and morning, before and after the owner’s other work. He was gradually building up his stock numbers, and I was therefore quite surprised to find a bull tied up in the end stall of the small byre. I advised the farmer that it would need to be moved to enable me to do the job.

He assured me that “Billy” the bull was very quiet and controllable, and could be moved by just slipping a halter over his head and leading him to the stall at the other end of the byre. My idea was to pipe up one end, move the bull and finish off the other end. I noticed the bull did not even have the usual ring through his nose and the owner even gave me a demonstration to prove how quiet the bull was.

The reason for all this was that he had to go and fulfil his obligations at his secondary job and would be away until late afternoon. All went well and the time came to move the bull. I was by then encouraged by the fact of it being so docile while I had been working around it. I went through the motions of talking to the beast of course, and after putting on the halter, slipping the chain to lead it out.

Still feeling a little apprehensive, I was holding on near the end of the rope. The bull had to reverse a little to get turned round. I had just turned round to see where I was stepping when there was one almighty crash which seemed to rock the building on its foundations.

I must have leapt a yard in the air, instinctively letting go of the rope as my pulse rate went into overdrive and I scrabbled about trying to find my feet expecting the final charge I suppose. Suddenly it seemed very quiet, the dust had settled and to my surprise there was the bull down on the ground with it’s fore feet splayed out pointing east and west, head in the dung channel and completely incapable of going anywhere. It had clearly slipped as it had tried to turn and had taken a nosedive.

I suppose it can hardly be said that the bull had a forlorn expression on its face, but the whole scene at that moment certainly had a farcical look. I had no idea what to do to get it back on its feet, so went outside to try to regain my composure. After spells of deep breathing while trying to decide what to do next, I had visions of broken legs and having to get the vet in to shoot the bull. How could I get in touch with the owner and so on.

I had all sorts of questions with very few answers, and it started to look like an episode from “All creatures great and small”. I don’t know why we tend to think the worst when confronted with these situations. But I eventually ventured back into the cowshed and the bull was just standing there as it nothing had happened.

I tentatively picked up the end of the halter rope, led him to the stall and the other end of the byre, chained him up and that was that. I celebrated with half a cup of half-warm tea from my flask and finished the job.

Personal hygiene at lambing time - get the basics right for the whole family

Personal hygiene is especially important at lambing time for both humans and sheep. Public health officers report that New Zealand has the highest number of campylobacter cases per head of population in the world, and rural people are most affected because of the large number of animals around.

Campylobacter is one of a group of 'tummy bugs' that statistics show increases in severity in spring in rural areas, with south Canterbury having the highest incidence.

The campylobacter bacterium lives in the gut of domestic and wild animals and humans are infected by contamination from animal faeces showing up as diarrhoea, stomach cramps, vomiting, aches and feeling unwell.

Lambing, docking, dagging, crutching and shearing are all times of close contact with animals and hence high risk, as well as handling cattle for routine treatments like lice and worm control. Handling newborn lambs is a great source of possible infection and especially after lambing a ewe. Hands and arms should be well washed after these events.

It's a good idea to wear overalls with long sleeves when working with stock, and clothing contaminated with faeces needs to be washed after use. You see many farm overalls so well covered in dung that they can stand up on their own!

Because of the way campylobacter is picked up, anyone working with stock should avoid being splashed by urine or faeces, and everyone in the family should automatically wash their hands after working with livestock and certainly before touching or preparing food.

The Forgotten Army

The “forgotten army” of WW2 was the British troops left behind in the jungles of Burma and Malaya with few resources to fight the advancing Japanese. The survivors got their well-deserved medals soon after VJ day in 1945.

But there was another forgotten army – “The Women’s Land Army and Forest Corps” and they have just got their recognition after waiting 63 long years! It’s a scandal.

My 93-year-old cousin Mary was one of 33,000 who joined up during the 1939-45 war, so the government would not have to spend much money on brooches after 63 years of waiting would they?

Mary said she’d had a nice letter from Prime Minister Mr Gordon Brown inviting her to Number 10 Downing Street for afternoon tea! She couldn’t make it. The PM’s picture appeared in the Telegraph Weekly taking the sugar bowl around a group of the old girls in his front room. To be fair, he did tell them that “it had been too long” for their recognition.

Why didn’t he book afternoon tea at the Palace up the road? They need not have used the posh china – the Land Girls used to drink from tin mugs during the war so they would not have worried. Wouldn’t that have thrilled the old girls. They would not have been a security threat at the palace and could have left their pitch forks, hoes, axes and crosscut saws at the gate.

It’s a disgrace! Why not a give them a medal like the Home Guard and Air Raid Wardens got? A medal with ribbons is recognised worldwide with much more status than a brooch.

What possible excuse could the British government have dug up for the delay? Did the Queen not know about these canny lasses not being recognised? Surely as a wartime ambulance driver herself, the Queen will have a war medal and know how important these small things are for personal sacrifice. And they did make sacrifices.

Surely the provision of food for a hungry nation under siege and timber for building and damage repair was not deemed unimportant. These grand lasses worked in all weathers in tough conditions and put up with all sorts of hazards like rats, mice down their riding britches on threshing days, and the advances of young farm lads on any days! Surely recognition with a decent medal long before 63 long years would have been the decent thing to do!

I can only think that if this insult to the Land Army and Forest Corps lasses is a sign of British efficiency, then God will need to do a lot more in the next 63 years than just “Save the Queen – or the King.”

So if anyone served in the WLA and Forest Corps, then make sure you get your brooch. At least it will be something for your family to value even if the British government didn’t value what they did.

How to Improve Milking

Milking is when animal-human interactions are at their maximum. There’s no more important time of day for dairy farmers and their staff and the effects of this interaction can be measured directly in the milk vat. So it’s easy to see success and failure.

The points below are presented with the permission of New Zealand’s most accomplished milking consultants – Jan Fox and Mel Eden. Contact Mel at PO Box 12-420, Hamilton, New Zealand. Email meleden@clear.net.nz

To ensure benefits for the cows

• Check the cows to see if the liners have milked them out properly.
• Check for correct rubber and dropper lengths
• Improve cluster alignment.
• Use a wire clip on cows with light quarters.
• Use vitamin creams on teats.
• Lower the milkline and vacuum levels.
• Widen the entrance way into the yard.
• Have nibs on concrete races and a footwash area.
• Have a solid lead-in wall in a HB extending at least 3-4 m from the end of the building.
• Create a funnel area to improve lead in to the HB.
• Round off the end of the breastrail.
• Use a small ‘pick-up’ gate to improve the action of the backing gate in a round yard and avoid a corner.
• Have a hock rail on the backing gate.
• Have a nib or pipe along the HB pit wall to prevent cows slipping.
• Lower the HB breast rail to improve cow comfort.
• Change the breastrail adjustment to a chain type to make easier adjustment.
• Use a zig-zag rather than a straight rail.
• Alter all pipework that bash the cows’ hips or backs.
• Check that the first bail in the HB is big enough.
• Fix the catch post so it isn’t in the cow’s face.
• Move the hinge post to be in line with the rump rail or cut it down below cow hip height.
• Use a rotating rump back bar and not a chain to hold the cows in.
• Fit an anti-jump bar in front of the cows
• Widen the exit race to at least 2.5m and preferably 3m.
• Make the drafting gate operable from the pit.
• Check and fix voltage problems.
• Roughen concrete to prevent cows slipping. Cows hate to fall down.
• Fit a spring-hinged small gate between entry/exit on rotaries.
• Cut the exit rails in rotary down to rump rail height or lower.

To ensure benefits for the milkers
• Deepen the pit.
• Use rubber mats to reduce backache and cramp.
• Reduce reach to the cows.
• Use a rope-operated switch to control the backing gate.
• Fit a warning bell on the backing gate.
• Fit a rope to shut the front gate.
• Improve lighting and use natural light.
• Use mirrors to see what’s going on in the yard.
• Use a sensor light on pathways and for tanker driver.
• Use freezer-bag ties to clear air admission holes - easier to see than pins.
• Use a peg basket on milkline to hold gear.
• Fit clear pulse tubes- easy to identify a split liner.
• Number the bails.
• Provide a sheltered area for bike and wet weather gear.
• Have a warm-water hand washing hose in the pit and milkroom.
• Put up some horticulture screening for shelter.
• Have a sheltered walkway to the milk room.
• Improve air flow to reduce fly annoyance.
• Put the regulator in the milkroom to reduce noise.
• Mount the vacuum pump and motors on the floor.
• Have a filtered air system on the pulsators to reduce noise.
• Have sealed doorway on the milkroom to reduce noise.
• Guard all pulleys and end of rotating shafts.
• Fit a froth dispenser.
• Have a separate colostrum line.
• Have a handle on the test bucket to hook over nib or into a bracket.
• Have a combined cupboard with the door as a fold-down table.
• Fit shield over the milk tank outlet to stop wash water spilling on to tanker driveway.
• Make a spray-can holder from PVC pipe and No 8 wire.
• Make a cradle for drums for easier emptying.
• Have step-up rails in the pit for short folk.
• Check the earthing on the drench gun.
• Fit a quick connector hose and tap for flushing out drench lines.
• Have a return pulley on the drench gun.
• Have a hooked nozzle on the drench gun.
• Have a raised drench race.
• Tilt the breast rail to increase drenching space.
• Use a coiled hose for the drenching system.
• Mount the drench hose on a wire to prevent wear.
• Put the radio in a sound shell so it can be heard more clearly.

Managing Communication on the Farm

By Clive Dalton and Geoffrey Moss

Every successful farm owner, share milker and herd manager says that “communication” is the secret of success. Most of this is one-to-one communication, but on larger farms staff meetings and group communication are necessary. So make sure these are well run and staff look forward to them rather than disappear down the back of the farm to do ‘urgent’ jobs.

Here are a few ideas to try:

What motivates a manager to do a good job?
• Pride in doing a good job.
• More responsibility.
• Opportunity for personal growth and development.
• Advancement and recognition of achievement.

Ways to help you work more efficiently
• Plan each day’s work in advance.
• Learn to delegate tasks to others.
• Make decisions fast – don’t procrastinate.
• Try to do one job at a time.
• ID your peak working times and use them for the most important jobs.
• Set yourself deadlines and tell others about them. This will commit you to action and prevent interruptions.
• Never spend more time on a job than it justifies.
• Carve up a job into small bites.
• Deal with only one bite at a time.
• Don’t put off the unpleasant tasks.
• Try to do jobs when they should be done.
• Concentrate on the most important jobs.
• If you can’t meet a deadline – warn your boss in plenty of time.

Coping with stress – recheck your daily routine
Work overload and stress occurs when you have been given too many jobs and not enough time to finish them.
• Check your goals and targets – make sure they’re realistic.
• List the jobs to be done or problems dealt with.
• Put them in priority order.
• Set a realistic timetable to deal with them.
• Do one job at a time.
• For difficult problems – get all the relevant information and make fast decisions to deal with them and get them out of the way.
• Don’t procrastinate.
• Work at your own pace.
• Avoid arguments when possible.
• Be calm, patient and cheerful.
• Take short breaks.
• Eat regular meals, get more sleep and avoid getting overweight.
• Smoking, alcohol and drugs are not solutions.
• Avoid miserable negative people – enjoy a joke with cheerful positive people.
• Do your best – you can do no more and try not to worry.

Managing meetings
You need a meeting if:
• You have information to pass on to a lot of people.
• You need to involve your team in a decision.
• You want to inform everyone at the same time.
• You need different perspectives on a single issue.
• You want group motivation and synergy.
• You want a commitment.

You don’t need a meeting if:
• You hold one every week out of habit.
• You have nothing special to discuss.
• You won’t achieve anything worthwhile.
• The issues are for you to decide on your own.

Call a meeting if you want to:
• Share information.
• Review progress.
• Brief your team.
• Coordinate people or teams.
• ID or help solve a problem.
• Generate ideas.
• Motivate and inspire your staff.

Before your next meeting check:
• Who can contribute?
• Whose input is needed?
• Who you should invite out of courtesy?
• Do you need someone to keep a record of what went on?
• Do you need to invite a ‘devil’s advocate’?

Prepare an agenda
Hand out copies or write it up on a whiteboard so you can tick items off when finished. The written agenda sent out before the next meeting should state:
• Time and place of meeting (especially start and end time).
• Purpose of the meeting.
• Names of people invited.
• Topics to be discussed – names attached to each topic if needed.
• Copy of minutes (key decisions) from the last meeting – to check if jobs have been done.
• An invitation to put things on the agenda.

Preparing a cunning agenda
• Save interesting items to the last.
• Don’t bring up important big issues at the end – everybody is too tired.
• Keep the good news of success or achievements to near the end to finish on a high note.
• At the start of the meeting ask if anyone wants anything put on the Any Other Business (AOB) at the end so it can be dealt with within the time and things don’t drag on.
• At the start tell people what time the meeting will finish and stick to this. If possible finish before time. If there are really hard issues – sort them out in another meeting.
• Try to sort things out with key individuals if needed before the meeting so the meeting flows.

Conflict
Conflict is inevitable in life and especially in the work place, so you need to know how to deal with it in a professional manner. There are now plenty of consultants who deal with this so use them. Living in an atmosphere of discontent which can soon speed towards outright hate is very dangerous for all involved, so it’s important for Herd Managers to be able to see signs of problems early on and resolve them as soon as possible.

Further reading

Geoffrey Moss: ‘Revitalise Your Business’ (2002). ISBN 0-9583538-6-7. This is essential reading for Herd Managers and at $30 is great value for money. Available from Geoffrey Moss, 7 Dorset Way, Wilton, 
Wellington 6012. 
New Zealand
Phone: +64 4 472 8226

Email: moss@xtra.co.nz
 moss@mossassociates.co.nz

Website: www.mossassociates.co.nz

NZ sheep farmers are weary

55+ and getting weary!

By Clive Dalton

The one great strength the NZ dairy industry has, is the low average age of those actually doing the physical work on farms. Sharemilkers and herd managers are in their 30s and can still run to head off a cow. Farming is a physical job and you have to be fit. At 30 the body stands up to more abuse than when things start to stiffen up when older.

When you look at the average sheep farmer- HE is 55+ years old, and already bits have started to fall off! His mainstay on the farm – Mum, shares his age, and what's worse, the chances are very high that any farm staff are older than both of them.

Years ago, ACC statistics showed that around 40% of sheep farmers had bad backs, and now hips and knees are starting to twinge from the battles of past years. New body parts are expensive.

But where are the boys? Well like good parents they sent the family to boarding schools for their secondary education, which inevitably did a great job. As these young folk grew up, they were home for weekends and holidays around which dagging, crutching and shearing were planned. Now these yunguns have qualified in law and accountancy and coming home to muster and dag sheep is a bit awkward, although they'd probably love to find the time.

They wisely didn't go into agricultural science as there is no career path there any more, not at the price of university education where you need at least two degrees and then no guarantee of a job with a future.

Many sheep farm jobs have to be done in the most un-natural position for the human body – standing upright but bent over looking at a sheep's rear end between your feet. The worst of these is dagging sheep. Shearers don't dag sheep, and now young staff are rebelling wanting more rewarding work.

A shepherd's dream would be no dagging, no drenching and no reason to leave. A sheep farmer's dream would be no dagging, no drenching, staff staying on and reduced costs. More profit would be nice but today's sheep farmers have learned to live with low profits for decades.

It's now a real dilemma. At age 55+ he and Mum are getting tired. The farm goes up in value by millions each year, and the profits go down. It wouldn't be so bad if the workload fell with profits; it doesn't.

Some advisers suggest heavier ewes increasing scanning and lambing percentage is the key to more profit, and fail to see this is madness – and is guaranteed to give more work.

An economist would tell farmers to sell up and get out of this capital rich and cash poor business. But they are dedicated. Dad asks what else could he do, and mum doesn't want to leave her home and garden for the last 30 years to move to town. It's really quite sad – and there's very little they can do other than tighten the belts once again. They've had plenty practice.

Wool is stuffed and nobody has a solution despite the last 30 years of promises. Now it looks as if lamb is stuffed too, and again, nobody seems to have a solution, although talk is cheap.

Today's sheep farmers need an urgent quick-fix. They can't wait for more medium to long-term solutions that never come. They've been listening to those kind or promises from bureaucrats for decades. A solid week's dagging would help the bureaucrats to see what the real problems are in the industry – increasing age, more work and little to show for it.