Dear Subscriber First Name

We’ve had a busy first quarter and the team have been at the table with breed companies - LIC and CRV, Professor Dorian Garrick Director of AL Rae Centre for Genetics and Breeding, NZ Animal Evaluation Limited, Dairy Trust Taranaki’s Fonterra/Nestle Partnership Farm, DairyNZ and Rissington Cattle Company. Hear more from our Committee Chairs below.

For those attending the Jersey NZ Conference in Invercargill at the end of March, the Jersey Advantage team will be speaking on Friday morning before the Jerseyland Farm Tour.

If you have any feedback on what we’re doing or would like to join us, please get in touch.  We’d love to hear from you - info@jerseyadvantage.co.nz

Best wishes, Rachel Haskew - Jersey Advantage General Manager

James Courtman – Chair Commercial Committee

Bull Intakes

Major breeding companies are seeing continued pressure from senior management to reduce bull team intakes, along with some movement between breeds with both companies increasing their crossbred bull team intakes as national sales continue the trend towards a crossbred cow.  The general view is ‘the cow of the future is a crossbred cow’.  Bull intakes have been reduced from 35 bulls down to 25 (CRV) and 35 bulls down to 30 (LIC), although they are allowing a few more bulls through Jersey Future to be proven. If we want to continue to keep genetic gain at a pace matching Holstein-Friesian and Crossbred, Jersey farmers may need to use more young sires via Jersey Future or Matriarch to help support high rates of genetic gain.

Our discussions with Professor Dorian Garrick reinforced the importance of keeping the two parent breeds strong to maximize genetic gain in the national herd, but unfortunately major breeding companies can no longer be relied upon to promote strong parent breeds.

NZAEL Liveweight Review

James is active on the NZAEL Farmer Advisory Panel promoting efficient, commercial dairy animals. Key things on the 2023 calendar are:

• Inclusion of genomics into BW 3.5 by end of the year. Due to the smaller population size genomics has been more accurate in the Jersey breed at identifying elite animals so far.

• Update to the Fertility BV to use pregnancy data via scanning to determine Fertility BVs and not the use of actual calving data to determine fertility. This will give information 6-7 months earlier than previously reported when calving day information was used. The reporting of pregnancy testing information is also more likely to be accurate as it is recorded during a less busy time on farm and often by vets. This will mean less low-quality records feeding into the system where farmers just record cows calving all on the same day or all on a Monday each week. This should see greater accuracy with the fertility BV and likely to see further divergence between the parent breeds.

• Review of the Liveweight BV economic values. Still yet to commence but we hope to see better clarity in the BW model around what proportion of BW comes from milk and meat and the energy requirements to achieve this. Some inconsistency in the way BW values are treated. Milk production and feed costs aren't being treated the same in regard to inflation and forward looking, we see opportunities for smaller efficient animals to be more fairly represented in the update.

• Economic values for BW weren't updated in 2022. The 2023 updates will effectively see two years’ worth of updates occur and this year will be the last year that the model contains the 189% value for fat which occurred about 5yrs ago.

Roger Ellison – Chair Environment Committee (Jersey NZ Representative)

Opportunity to Breed a Lighter Cow

We’ve had discussions with the Dairy Trust Taranaki (DTT) General Manager, Jason Rolfe about the environmental benefits of Jersey. This followed the announcement at Fieldays in November 2022 of a joint and trial initiative between Fonterra and Nestle to make one of the DTT farms carbon neutral within 10 years.

Our group worked out if this farm replaced its predominantly HF herd with Jerseys 100kg lighter they would reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 10% without compromising milk solid production. Profitability would likely improve as less supplements and nitrogen would be needed.

At present, in the absence of rumen modifiers and vaccines, reducing DM intake/hectare is the only real way to reduce on farm GHG emissions. Replacing heavier cows with the same number of lighter Jerseys means you can reduce DM intake/ha without compromising production and total herd value or equity.  We plan on working with DTT and other farm businesses to promote this message further.

Ben Watson - Bobby Calf & Dairy Beef Committee Chair

Bobby Calves

Jersey Advantage met with DairyNZ around non replacement calves, the uptake has been slow across industry stakeholders and DairyNZ need to confirm funding for the ‘Dairy calf opportunities – beyond bobbies’ project to continue and there are currently no set time frames.

As with all other groups we have met with over the last 3 years, DairyNZ agrees we must have a bobby calf system for the short to medium term but does not see it as defendable.  Nor is a 10-day calf or any calf being slaughtered considered to have a meaningful life. DairyNZ sees potential solutions being a composite of many bites being taken out of the bobby calf problem by a combination of dairy beef initiatives, sexed semen, extended lactations, etc. All of which undermine demand for Jersey genetics and in turn the profitability of NZ’s Dairy industry.

As an outcome of this meeting Ben and Roger Ellison expressed interest in being involved in the Farmer Stakeholder Group DairyNZ want to establish. It’s critical for Jersey Advantage to be at the table and involved in industry conversations as this is where we can have an influence - this is a good outcome!

Dairy Beef

Ben visited Rissington Cattle Company in the Hawkes Bay to learn how trials have shown beef cross heifers and steers with 25% Jersey blood have gone prime earlier and at lighter weights than expected and none have been downgraded for yellow fat.  We also discussed the bobby calf industry and reducing numbers through removing more run cows and replacing with heifers that finish at lighter weights and require less total feed, also a once bred heifer system that incorporated dairy beef heifers and would also replace a portion of run cows.  We also discussed the carbon repercussions that would result from having more animals reared from any ‘Zero Bobby’ strategy, Rissington believe the pool of dry matter for beef could certainly be split differently.

Since Ben’s visit, Rissington has been badly hit by Cyclone Gabrielle and Jersey Advantage wish them all the best with a big clean up and rebuild ahead.

Mark Townshend - Jersey Advantage Trust Board Chair

Jerseyland Farms Growth Options

There is little doubt the Jersey Advantage promoted Jerseyland Farm project has been a success. It could not have happened without the financial support of Jersey Advantage supporters. The project’s success has provided a focal point and changed the funding structures for Jersey Advantage and Jersey NZ. Discussions are just commencing around growing the Jerseyland Farm model to either, add a youngstock support block, or the purchase of a bigger or second dairy unit. The ultimate driver is to generate $250,000 annual income for each of Jersey Advantage and Jersey NZ. 

Jersey Advantage Trust Board is seeking support for funding work projects

The essential work-streams under way include monitoring that high solids milk is being fairly paid for by processors, promoting the material 12% carbon efficiency that high solids milk has over low solids milk, ensuring the target to reduce bobby calf numbers is realistic and rational rather than emotional, and observing that changes to BW are fact and economics driven rather than popularity driven. 

Rollover of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Jersey NZ

Jersey Advantage and Jersey NZ need to work together and have clarity around roles, responsibilities, and funding.  It is intended the MOU be reviewed annually, and agreement reached.  Currently Jersey NZ deals with all JNZ membership issues, registration and classification matters and breed custodianship.  Jersey Advantage‘s delegated areas of responsibility are milk and meat payments, genetic indices, and matters of future proofing covering industry bobby issues and environmental targets.  The two overlapping areas of responsibilities between JA and JNZ are genetic improvement and breed promotion where there is both cooperation and some separate matters.

Ways that you can financially support Jersey Advantage are:

• Donation of cow or boner proceeds

• Selling an elite animal with the sale proceeds going to Jersey Advantage

• Donating to Jersey Advantage specifically supporting the Jerseyland farm project

• Co-investing with Jersey Advantage in the Jerseyland farm project. Our current five Co-investors (Bailey, Bocock, Colebrook, Dobson, Gibson families) have each enjoyed the dual benefits of supporting the Jersey Advantage work-streams, and strong personal financial returns on their investment.