Drought is taking its toll on farmers in New Zealand

I am currently working on a dairy farm in Canterbury, New Zealand. The farm operates two 60 bale rotary milking parlours with 1500 cows on 395ha.

This dairy season in New Zealand has been a tough one as the drought has continued throughout the summer and milk prices are lower than previous seasons. Dairy farmers in New Zealand are struggling to cope with the lack of rain and are forced to make hard decisions to keep their farms up and running.

The dairy farms in New Zealand can be fully, partially or non-irrigated. Even the fully irrigated farms are enduring hardship as a result of the water restrictions in place.

Prolonged droughts like the one this summer in New Zealand occur approximately once every seven to 10 years. Many farm managers wouldn’t have much experience with long droughts. They then have to rely on information from more experienced farmers and researchers in their area.

The levels of rainfall have been low since April. Farmers had to start irrigation in September as opposed to October. Therefore more water has been used from reservoirs and less rain is falling to replenish these resources.

Evaporation from the vegetation on farms in the Canterbury region has been very high this year with results recorded as high as 9mm and 7mm as an average figure for January.

As a result even if farms have very good irrigation with no restrictions it is still extremely difficult to keep moisture in the soil and a regular grass growth rate cannot be maintained.

Most irrigators give 5mm max. On the farm I am working on approximately 16 million litres of water is used daily. As the weather was so warm this summer, soil temperatures were above 16 degrees and ryegrass stops growing above this temperature.

Management decisions

Very important management decisions have had to be taken on farms all around New Zealand to try to cope with the drought.

Many farmers are moving to once a day or sixteen hour milkings to reduce the demand for feeding and water on their farms.

Farmers are also considering drying off their cows earlier for the same reason. Underperforming cows are being culled from farms all across New Zealand.

The average dairy cow needs 18kg DM per day. As there is a shortage of grass on most dairy farms, here in New Zealand farmers have had to start feeding out silage in the paddock earlier than usual.

Also farmers are feeding out palm kernel (very high in DM and protein) at an average of 5kg per cow per day to ensure their cows are getting enough DM in their diets. Palm kernel is a cheap supplement and costs from 200 dollars per tonne while silage is more expensive at $380 (€258) per tonne.